Journey Home
by occhi bella
Summary: FINALLY COMPLETE. What might have happened if Ichabod had left Katrina’s book behind? AU story.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Sleepy Hollow and its characters do not belong to me. I make no money from this.

**Summary:** Events as they might have happened if Ichabod had left Katrina's book behind. Take two - I decided to take a different approach with this fic. :)

**Note:** In this scenario, Lady Van Tassel did not kill her sister, so the crone will appear.

* * *

**_Chapter One_**

_"It was an evil spirit possessed you. I pray God that it is satisfied and that you find peace. The evil eye has done its work. My life is over, spared for a lifetime of horrors in my sleep, waking each day to grief. Goodbye, Katrina."_

These were the last words he spoke to her, pressing her hand with his own as he bid her goodbye. Ichabod had never credited the existence of spirits until he came to Sleepy Hollow; and it was the only explanation for Katrina's behavior, now that he'd concluded that she was the one who had been controlling the Headless Horseman, manipulating him to kill. He could not believe that she was evil herself; he would never believe that.

She wasn't conscious and did not hear him, nor was she aware of his presence. With a heavy heart he turned and left her bedroom.

The Burgomaster had sent him to Sleepy Hollow to discover and apprehend the assassin who was beheading the residents of the town. Ichabod didn't know what he was going to say to his superior upon his return; but he was determined to never utter a word to a soul about Katrina's guilt. Standing in the parlor before the fire now, he threw his ledger containing the notes related to the case into the flames. As he stared into the hearth, watching the flames consume the book, he became aware of the weight of his vest pocket. He reached in and removed the book that he'd kept close to his heart since he'd received it from Katrina's hand. _A Compendium of Spells, Charms and Devices of the Spirit World_. It was a gift from her and he had cherished it despite the fact that he didn't believe in such nonsense. It was proper to return it to her, since he had no use for it now. He set it down on the table just as the coach pulled up before the house to take him back to the city.

Young Masbath met him at the front door. They stood together on the porch as Van Ripper took his bags to load onto the coach.

"You think it was Katrina, don't you." The boy's voice was laced with subtle accusation.

Ichabod rounded on him quickly. "That can never be uttered."

"A strange sort of witch, with a kind and loving heart. How can you think so?"

"I have good reason."

"Then you are bewitched by reason," he retorted.

"And beaten down by it!" Ichabod cried angrily.

The boy looked stricken and Ichabod took a deep breath, regaining his composure. Masbath was still young and had not learned many of life's harshest lessons yet.

"It is a hard lesson for a hard world, Young Masbath, and you had better learn it. Villainy wears many masks. None so dangerous as the mask of virtue."

Young Masbath's eyes were glassy with tears and Ichabod placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, squeezing it.

"Farewell."

He climbed into the carriage and shut the door. As the coach pulled away, he looked out of the window and glimpsed Young Masbath standing on the porch watching. Ichabod craned his neck to look up at the window of Katrina's bedroom; one last glance. A part of him hoped to find her standing in the window; to see her one more time. But she wasn't there.

As they rode through town he saw a coffin cart pulling up in front of Doctor Lancaster's office. Lady Van Tassel's arm protruded from underneath the blanket and the cut on the palm of her hand was plainly visible. He had seen her inflict the wound on herself the night he followed her and discovered her fornicating with Reverend Steenwyck. There were so many illicit goings-on, so many secrets, so much fear in this small town. It would be a relief to return to the city and its anonymity.

Ichabod sighed and leaned back in his seat, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing the thaumatrope that his mother had given him as a little boy. He began to twirl it back and forth absently as the coach ascended the road leading out of the town of Sleepy Hollow.

The grief over the loss of what he thought had been happiness gained would never leave him. He couldn't leave the painful memories of Sleepy Hollow behind, no matter how far away he went.

**oooOooo**

_The vivid red door stood out against the pristine sparkling white of the church interior. His heart began to race as he hid in one of the back rows among the pews, for he knew where he was and what was in the room beyond that door. And that **she** was in there._

_Minutes later it opened and his father emerged from that room. With dread Ichabod sank lower toward the floor, attempting to make himself as small as possible, and watched from his hiding place as Reverend Crane's dark figure moved solemnly down the center aisle of the church, coming toward him. Once he had passed by Ichabod rose just enough so that he could see. The reverend's collar was drawn up and when he glimpsed his father's back it seemed that he was staring at a headless man._

_He felt the weight of a scream in his chest; yet somewhere in the back of his mind a rational part of him realized that he was dreaming._

_Suddenly he wasn't in Reverend Crane's church that he'd attended in childhood, where his father had murdered his mother. He was inside the prominent white church of Sleepy Hollow, the place where he'd discovered Katrina's treachery. But he was walking along the same red carpet that ran down the aisle of Reverend Crane's church and the same red door stood before him._

_Ichabod didn't want to open the door, for he knew what he would find; he'd already seen it, had already remembered it. But before he knew it he was standing in front of that terrible cabinet, compelled by a force that he couldn't resist. A moment later he had opened the door to the iron maiden, where he knew his mother's bloody body was._

_Only his mother wasn't the one in the cabinet. It was Katrina…_

He was sitting up in bed crying out in horror when he came to himself. Realizing that he was awake now, he quieted down and remained where he was, gasping for air. His body was drenched in sweat.

Much time passed before he finally caught his breath and gained some control over himself again. It was already dawn. He swung his legs over the bed and stood up, sticking his feet into the slippers before the night table and stumbling over to the bench at the end of the bed. His robe lay across it as he had left it and he slipped it on hastily. Anna his maid had left a glass and a covered pitcher of fresh water on the low bureau near the window.

After lighting a candle and pouring himself a full glass of water he took both and left the bedroom, climbing the stairs to his laboratory and settling himself down at his desk.

More than a fortnight had passed since his return from Sleepy Hollow and he was still haunted by the events that had occurred there, plagued day after day with bittersweet memories, night after night with terrible dreams. His nightmares had grown worse; but now the horrors of his past overlapped and became hopelessly blurred with the tragic, heartbreaking events of the present. He shivered at the memory of the nightmare he'd woken out of mere minutes before. What did it mean?

Ichabod remained at his desk, sipping water slowly and reading through the notes he'd made in his ledger about an ongoing case; rational activities that he hoped would bring equilibrium to his temper. His duty shift started in just a couple of hours.

Right now he still had his job as a New York constable. Obviously Ichabod couldn't tell his superiors that a witch was manipulating a headless ghost, forcing him to murder the victims that she chose, nor could he tell them that she had been possessed by an evil spirit. They would have locked him up if he had. Instead, upon his return to the Watch House he had explained the basic nature of the crime; a man committing murders at the bidding of his beloved, a woman scheming to lay her hands on her father's property and all properties that he would have inherited from Peter Van Garrett.

"Where are the two culprits then, Constable Crane?" the Burgomaster had asked him.

His facial muscles began to twitch at that moment. He knew he had to lie, something he loathed, for he had devoted his life to seeking out the truth. This was a necessity that went against his grain.

"They are both dead," he replied after taking a deep breath. "It's all in the report that I've handed up to you."

It still tore him apart, though in a way, she _was_ dead to him.

He didn't know whether his superiors credited the account of events that were in his report; he did know that the Burgomaster found it difficult to believe that a woman could be responsible for such brutal murders. So far he hadn't been dismissed from his duties however.

These things mattered very little to him now. He woke every morning with a heavy heart after a night filled with horrible dreams. The world was grey and bleak around him. He still believed adamantly that the justice system had to be changed, that the courts needed to cease relying on torture and the constabulary needed to start building their cases based on facts discovered by scientific and logical means. But he no longer advocated for it with the same fervor.

Often, as he worked at home in his laboratory, he would suddenly come to himself, finding that he was staring fixedly at nothing, that he had unwittingly stopped working and his mind had drifted far away. There would be tears streaming down his cheeks.

Glancing at the clock on the shelf in the laboratory he saw that it was drawing near seven o'clock. He snuffed out the candle, rose from the desk and left the laboratory, bringing the empty glass and his ledger with him. He returned to his room and donned his uniform quickly. Then he went to the kitchen, where Anna would be readying tea and breakfast for him.

Today would be another long day, he thought with a sigh, one in which he numbly went through the motions of his life, straining to keep his grief and his nightmares at bay until he returned home, where he could convene with them in private once again.

**oooOooo**

Anna was a short, slender woman with straight dark hair and a pale, angular face. She was in her early twenties and had married at a very young age. Her husband died during the first yellow fever epidemic in New York. Left with very little money and no property, she rented a room in a boarding house near Lispenard Meadow, run by a respectable matron and which catered to young, single ladies who needed a safe and clean place to live, then sought out employment. She came to work as a maid for Emma Thackeray, the widow who owned the house and where Ichabod had previously resided as a tenant. Anna left the boarding house then and settled into the servant's quarters in Mrs. Thackeray's home. She had been working there for two years already when he rented the upstairs attic that now served as his laboratory. Previously it had been his bedroom as well.

Mrs. Thackeray had been a kind woman, almost like a mother to him. Understanding that he made very little money she charged him a lower monthly fee than she might have asked for. After a time she caught on that he often skipped meals. Promulgating that he was too thin and undernourished, she often invited him to dine with her. The few details that he knew of Anna's life he'd learned from her.

She had passed away about two years before, leaving no kith or kin. He learned then that she'd had a son, but he'd been killed fighting in the War for Independence. Ichabod was stunned when her attorney summoned him for the reading of her will; and he was speechless when he learned that she had bequeathed to him her home and a stipend of money to keep Anna employed as his maid. He'd felt blessed. Finding his paths crossed with this magnanimous woman had turned out to be one of the few strokes of good luck in his life.

Anna was setting a bowl of oatmeal and a plate of sliced apples on the table as he walked into the dining room.

"Good morning," she greeted him.

"Good morning."

She turned and walked away, disappearing into the kitchen as he took a seat at the table.

Ichabod frowned into his bowl of oatmeal. It was hard to have an appetite before working. Inevitably he would be looking over gruesome, bloody crime scenes and a full stomach was a hindrance at those times; especially one as weak as his. He picked up a slice of apple and took a bite.

"Did you sleep alright, sir?" Anna inquired, returning with a cup and saucer and a pot of tea. She filled the teacup then set the pot down on the table.

Her voice was laced with genuine concern and he stiffened, realizing that she must have heard him cry out during the night. It was a wonder that he didn't wake up the entire neighborhood.

"Yes, thank you," he answered hastily.

"It may be bold for me to say, sir, but you have not been yourself since you returned from that place."

"That is not your affair," he snapped harshly.

Anna averted her eyes. He had never raised his voice to her.

"As I said, sir, I am too bold. I apologize." She hesitated. "I'll leave you to your breakfast."

Ichabod took a deep breath. "Thank you for your concern, Anna," he replied apologetically.

She curtseyed hurriedly and returned to the kitchen.

Turning back to his breakfast, Ichabod forced himself to eat a few spoonfuls of the oatmeal. Feeling weak from hunger wouldn't do him any good either.

A half hour later he was walking to work. He was immediately ordered to go before the Burgomaster, for a reason that the High Constable would not divulge. He appeared to be smirking almost and Ichabod examined his face, attempting to read his expression more closely. But there didn't seem to be self-satisfaction in his face, as if he knew Ichabod was in trouble and was glad for it. The man merely appeared sour as usual. But Ichabod was still filled with dread when he reported to the Burgomaster.

"Constable Crane."

He shuffled a stack of papers before him, searching for something.

"I received this letter from Sleepy Hollow," he told him, holding it up. "Your presence there has been requested again. You may have solved the case of the murders in town, but it appears that there are other problems. Two people have disappeared."

Ichabod's heart sank into his knees. He would go anywhere they asked, but he did not want to return to Sleepy Hollow under any circumstances.

"Disappeared?" Ichabod echoed, swallowing nervously.

"A young woman of the town and a boy," he replied. "There was a letter included with the dispatch to me, addressed to you. They have asked for your assistance."

He handed down the letter and Ichabod approached the bench to retrieve it.

"You leave tomorrow."

"With all due respect, I should like to remain here," he began, but the Burgomaster cut him off.

"You are the man for this job. The people in the village know you now and you successfully solved the first case. It is fitting that you should be the one to return to help them."

Left with no choice, Ichabod nodded and reluctantly answered that he would go.

The Burgomaster dismissed him then and he went back to advise the High Constable that he was being sent away again. Ichabod was not surprised to learn that he already knew.

For the first time now he looked at the letter that the Burgomaster had handed him, the one addressed to him. It was sealed with red wax. He broke the seal and opened it gingerly, and his eye sought out the end of the narrative and the name of the person who'd sent the letter. It was signed by Hans Van Ripper, the coachman who had driven him back to New York. Ichabod began to read the letter from the beginning.

They had buried Baltus and the other casualties of the fight that had erupted in the church that fateful night. About ten days or so after Ichabod left it came to the town's attention that both Katrina Van Tassel and Young Masbath appeared to have completely disappeared.

There was paperwork to be done after the burial in order for Katrina to inherit Baltus' property, but she did not keep her appointment with Samuel Philipse Jr., a lawyer and the late Magistrate's son. He went to the Van Tassel home, thinking that perhaps she was ill and could not venture out. When he arrived and knocked on the door no one answered.

Finally, after she didn't appear for a few days, some men of the village removed the front door from its hinges and went inside. They searched the house, but she was nowhere to be found. In the parlor, however, one of the men spotted a trail of dried blood on the floor. A search of the neighboring houses revealed nothing; a search of the surrounding woods proved fruitless.

At around this time, some of the townsfolk realized that they hadn't seen Young Masbath either.

Van Ripper implored him to return and help them. Although there had been no more sightings of the Hessian and no more headless corpses had been found, they feared the worst.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two**_

Anna was dismayed when Ichabod told her that he would be away on business as of the following morning but she said nothing. Although he hadn't told her that he was returning to the same place, he could see in her face that she had guessed.

She served him his dinner quietly. He managed to eat only half of the meal then retired to his laboratory to gather his books, chemicals and equipment and pack them for his second journey to Sleepy Hollow, still brooding on the unwelcome news that he'd received from a place that he dearly wished he could forget.

The letter from Van Ripper and the impending second journey to Sleepy Hollow had weighed heavily on his mind all day. Now, in the privacy of his laboratory, he took out the letter and perused it again.

When the Headless Horseman beheaded his victims, the blade of his sword was so red hot that the neck wounds were instantly cauterized, leaving only traces of blood on the ground, if anything at all, rather than the pools of blood one would expect to find around the bodies. From the description that Van Ripper gave, it seemed that a thin trail of blood had been left in the parlor of the Van Tassel house. If there had been a crime committed there, it was doubtful that the Hessian was guilty. The perpetrator was someone of flesh and blood, and the drops of blood on the floor belonged to either the victim or possibly the culprit himself.

"Or herself," he corrected himself, remembering his own short-sightedness and refusal to believe that a woman could be guilty.

The thin trail of blood could easily be explained by a cut such as the one Lady Van Tassel inflicted on her own hand. Katrina simply may have engaged in a similarly odd ritual and left drops of her own blood on the floor. Perhaps nothing was amiss at all and she simply disappeared of her own volition.

But then there was the question of Young Masbath. What had happened to him?

Ichabod suddenly remembered the day that they had returned from Notary Hardenbrook's office and found Katrina Van Tassel in the room where he was staying, reading his ledger. At that point he was convinced of Baltus Van Tassel's guilt and had unintentionally made a notation to that fact before the thought had completely come together in his mind.

Katrina knew that he had been to see the notary and that he'd returned with evidence that would point to her father's guilt; she had questioned him and he, assuming that her questions were guileless, answered them honestly. But when he left the room again, she promptly purloined the will and other evidence that he'd procured and destroyed it in a fire at the old cottage ruins where she'd lived as a young child.

Young Masbath had been with him then, as he was during the entire investigation. Was it possible that Katrina viewed the child as a threat? After all, if he was with Ichabod at Notary Hardenbrook's office, perhaps she assumed that he knew what Ichabod knew. The drops of blood in the parlor therefore might have been the boy's blood.

Upon reading through the letter again, then two more times, Ichabod still failed to gain any further insight. He folded it up and was about to put it in the pocket of the waistcoat he would be wearing the next day when he realized that he'd seen something. Now he hastily unfolded it and examined the handwriting closely, his suspicions aroused as he did so. It almost looked like a child had written this letter.

Had Young Masbath himself written this letter, but signed Van Ripper's name? He was clearly devastated that Ichabod had decided to leave post haste. Would the child stoop to such trickery? He couldn't believe that, nor could he believe that this letter was a hoax. Yet at the same time, something about it felt all wrong and he wondered if someone was simply attempting to lure him back to Sleepy Hollow for a reason that he was yet to discover. Or perhaps he was merely fancying the ridiculous, so loathe was he to return to that place.

Of course it was quite possible that Van Ripper was barely literate, his penmanship abilities limited. Besides, he saw no reason why someone would write to him under Van Ripper's name instead of their own.

With a fretful sigh, Ichabod inserted the folded letter into his vest pocket and finished packing, his mind filled with questions and worries. There were countless conclusions that he'd jumped to, clues and details that he'd failed to heed, and he feared that the consequences were only beginning to become clear. He could only blame himself if any harm had now come to Young Masbath because he left Sleepy Hollow prematurely.

**oooOooo**

Ichabod set off on the two-day journey from the city to Sleepy Hollow at seven-thirty the next morning. He was exhausted before it began. After lying awake for the entire night, he had managed to doze off shortly before dawn, sleeping fitfully for only about an hour before Anna rapped on his door.

It was a long, unpleasant drive. The scenery along the Hudson River was lovely but when he gazed out at it he only saw bleakness and gloom, imagining the misery and cruelty that lurked beneath even the most beautiful façades. Night fell and he drifted in and out of sleep as the coach drove over dirt roads that were filled with bumps, the carriage jostling him as it was tossed about. Disjointed thoughts filled his head as he slipped in and out of consciousness and the faces of Katrina and other people from Sleepy Hollow loomed before his eyes and faded away. After hours and hours of this discomfort the carriage suddenly lurched violently as the coach abruptly stopped and Ichabod woke with a start.

They were stopped before the two familiar stone pillars that flanked the narrow path leading down into the town of Sleepy Hollow from the main road. He alighted from the carriage, took his bags from the driver and paid him.

As the coach rumbled away, Ichabod stood on the threshold of the path and stared into the valley that enfolded the tiny hamlet. His stomach was in knots and he was filled with dread as he regarded the large, prominent white church, the adjacent cemetery where the numerous victims of the Hessian lay, the covered bridge through which Brom Van Brunt had chased him as part of a prank.

Almost everyone he knew from his last trip to this place was dead now, even Young Masbath possibly. A convulsive shiver ran through him.

Pushing aside the eerie feeling, Ichabod hoisted his bags, squared his shoulders and set off down the road and into town. He decided to first visit Hans Van Ripper, since he'd written the letter asking for help, and then inquire as to the whereabouts of Samuel Philipse Jr. With all of the previous town elders deceased other men of the village would have had to step in to fill their places. It stood to reason that the magistrate's son, himself an attorney at law, would be one of those men.

Upon passing the church he could see that they had not yet repaired the large window. His eyes closed and he involuntarily stopped walking as the memory of that night in the church came unbidden.

Baltus Van Tassel hurrying up the stairs to the loft, brandishing a pistol and desperately shouting about a conspiracy that he would seek out, proving Ichabod wrong in his deduction that Baltus was the assassin. The sound of glass shattering and the shocking moment in which he realized that Baltus's torso had been speared through with a fence post, the end of a make-shift harpoon-like weapon that the Hessian had used, and he was bleeding profusely. Then he was being yanked back by the rope, pulled through the window of the church and dragged along the ground. Katrina was screaming and running up the stairs to see what had happened to her father, he running after her, arriving at the window in time to see the Hessian doubling back to cut off Baltus's head, which was now positioned outside of the fence that encircled the church, no longer on hallowed ground that he couldn't touch. Ichabod was on the verge of fainting when the blade came down; but beside him Katrina did so first, snapping him out of his near-swoon.

In that moment when he turned to help her he noticed the pink chalk in her hand and glimpsed the symbol of the evil eye drawn below in pink chalk on the floor of the church, a symbol identical to the one that he'd found drawn under his bed. It was then that he put two and two together and knew that she was the worker of black magic that controlled the horseman, that she was the one responsible for the murders. But why had she reacted the way she did then? Did she have regrets in those last moments upon seeing how her handiwork brought about her father's end? He would never know.

Physically shaking off the vivid memory, he opened his eyes and continued on his way. Van Ripper was at home and quite intoxicated. And he was also utterly shocked to find Ichabod at his door.

"Constable Crane! What brings you back to Sleepy Hollow?"

Ichabod stood speechless for a moment, then he withdrew the letter from the pocket inside his frock coat, unfolded it and handed it to him.

"I received this letter from you."

"From me? I didn't send a letter." His eyes roved over the paper. "Someone is playing a joke on you, Constable."

He handed the letter back to him. Ichabod gaped at him, wondering if perhaps Van Ripper was merely too drunk to remember having written him a letter.

"A cruel joke if that is the case, Mr. Van Ripper. Do you recognize the handwriting? It appears to be that of a child."

"I don't recognize it."

"What about Katrina and Young Masbath?" Ichabod demanded, growing irritated. "Are they missing, as this letter indicates? Or is that a joke as well?"

Van Ripper scratched his head but said nothing.

"Hans, what are you standing in the doorway for? Invite our guest in for goodness sake!"

The stern voice that came from inside belonged to Van Ripper's wife. He stood aside and let Ichabod in. Mrs. Van Ripper was a short, plump woman with light brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was as energetic and lively as her husband was dull and lethargic, eagerly coming forward to greet him and escort him into the house.

She bustled him over to the table by the hearth after he set his bags down and coaxed him into a chair.

"You must be tired from your journey. I'll bring you some tea."

Minutes later there was a plate of sweets in front of him.

"There has been talk about Katrina going missing," she told him as she set a cup down before him and poured him tea. "They are guessing that she ran off half-mad, what with losing her whole family in a day. First her stepmother, then her father. And of course she lost her own mother just about two years ago."

"What about Young Masbath?"

"He might have gone with her, to look after her. After all, he has no one left either."

"Someone from this town wrote me a letter in your name, Mr. Van Ripper. There must be a reason, and I should think that you would be concerned."

"Really?" Mrs. Van Ripper was more interested in this latest intrigue than her husband apparently was and she came around, hovering over Ichabod, eager to see the letter. "I couldn't say whose handwriting that is, honestly."

"Where would Katrina have gone if she did run off, as you suggest?"

"No one knows. To a relative in another village that nobody here has heard of maybe. Into the woods perhaps, to see the witch there."

He shivered, remembering his own odd experience with the crone in the Western Woods.

Mrs. Van Ripper returned to the hearth and Ichabod exhaled, relieved. Her hovering over him had made him just a bit uneasy.

Van Ripper sat quietly, swigging his drink from a mug, clearly unfazed and not caring that someone had forged his name on an official letter to the Burgomaster of the City of New York. Ichabod sipped his tea and munched on a cookie, mulling over the latest turn of events. Was it possible that Young Masbath wrote the letter, as he'd considered? But then why wouldn't he sign his own name?

Whoever wrote the letter felt the need to disguise their identity. Perhaps they had even disguised their handwriting.

"That's it," he murmured as it dawned on him. Had he not been so distracted these last weeks that line of reasoning should have been one that came to him immediately. "Someone right-handed writing with their left hand, for example."

But why? If someone had gone through the trouble of summoning him and asking for his help, why do it under such odd pretense?

And there was something else that nagged at him. Katrina had not kept her appointment with the younger Philipse, and the more he thought about that, the less sense it made. Why, after working so hard to get rid of everyone that stood in her way to the family fortune, would she fail to appear for the signing of the papers, the final step in acquiring her goal?

He was also quite disturbed at how unconcerned both Van Rippers seemed to be that two young people from their town were missing. The whole experience was discombobulating.

"Well," he began, standing up to leave. "I thank you very much for the tea. You're very kind. And now I should like to speak with Samuel Philipse Jr. Where can I find him?"

"He has taken the office that was his father's."

Ichabod thanked them again and took his leave, anxious to speak with the younger Philipse. Perhaps he would be privy to information that would be more helpful.

**oooOooo**

Samuel Philipse Jr. shared his father's eye color and complexion, but he otherwise bore no resemblance to him at all. He was quite tall, easily over six feet, and his body was lean and sinewy. After greeting Ichabod cordially and indicating for him to take the chair across from his desk he listened attentively to his explanation of the letter and Van Ripper's denial that he'd written it.

"The contents of the letter are quite true, Constable Crane. We did find traces of blood on the parlor floor of the Van Tassel home, and no one has seen either Miss Van Tassel or Young Masbath for nearly a fortnight. I'm not sure what can be done at this point, but we would be grateful for any assistance you can offer."

"You are still looking then?"

"To be honest, we've given up. They are not to be found anywhere in town. We did search the woods immediately surrounding the town. No one will dare go further than that. Even the bravest men fear the Western Woods."

Ichabod sighed dejectedly. Although he was hearing more of the same superstition from this educated young lawyer that he'd always lacked patience for, he couldn't fault the man. He'd seen with his own eyes that the Headless Horseman existed, that there was a tree that served as a gateway to Hell, and that allowed a ghost to pass to and from the underworld at will – or at someone else's will. He'd been witness to the workings of magic in this town. As much as he wished he could turn back time, to forget that he knew of these truths now, he could not.

The best approach, he decided, was to treat this as he would any other rational, worldly investigation.

"Would you take me to the Van Tassel home? I should like to examine the parlor and the blood stains on the floor."

"What would blood stains tell you?"

Judging from the look on the younger Philipse's face, Ichabod guessed that the blood had already been cleaned up.

"Has the room otherwise been left as it was?"

"A chair was overturned. We righted it."

"I see. I'd like to have a look. Would you mind?"

"Not at all. I'm happy to help, Constable."

They walked together to the edge of town, turning up the curved, gently sloping path that led to the large house that Baltus Van Tassel had built. The jack-o-lanterns along the road weren't lit this time and the house was completely dark.

"I thought the door had been removed."

"It was. They replaced it right away in the event that Miss Katrina returned."

They entered the house and Philipse began to light the candles in the main room. As they moved through the house, they lit up each room as they went. Ichabod went into the parlor. This was the room where he'd found Katrina sitting up and reading, dressed only in her nightgown and a thin robe. She gave him her book of spells that morning. _A Compendium of Spells, Charms and Devices of the Spirit World_. The book lay on the table still, exactly where he'd left it the day he departed from Sleepy Hollow.

Odd that she had left it there. He walked to the table and picked the book up gingerly, opening it to the flyleaf at the front where two names were signed. _Elizabeth Van Tassel_, and below it _Katrina Van Tassel_. A twinge of pain gripped his heart as he read the names again and he closed his eyes. Whatever she had done, this had been a true gift indeed. A book that belonged to her mother must have meant the world to her, as much as his mother's thaumatrope, a silly paper disk on a string, meant to him. Yet she had generously offered it to him.

_"It is sure protection against harm."_

It seemed unlikely that a book would offer him protection, but it didn't matter. Any gift from her meant the world to him.

"The blood was here."

Ichabod opened his eyes with a start. Philipse had entered the room and was standing by a large plush armchair near the hearth.

"This chair was overturned," he explained. "The blood trail started here and continued to the doorway. Then it stopped. It was a very thin trail."

"I see." He replaced Katrina's book on the table and moved over to the chair, kneeling down and inspecting the floor. "Was it a steady stream of blood?"

"More like a sprinkling of drops."

"As if from a small cut rather than a severe wound."

"Yes. Where are you staying for the night, Constable?"

"I'm afraid I'm in a rather odd situation, since the person who I thought summoned me here did not do so." Ichabod stood up and brushed his pants off. "I have not made arrangements yet."

"Well, I suppose you could stay here in this house," he suggested.

"That…doesn't seem right."

"How foolish of me. I don't know why I even suggested it." He paused. "You're welcome to stay in my home then."

"Thank you."

Ichabod finished inspecting the room. Other than the overturned chair and the blood that had been reported, there was nothing out of place. He found himself standing before the table again, staring at Katrina's book. Once more he picked it up and gazed at it for a moment before putting it down and turning to leave.

But something made him turn back yet again. He picked the book up and tucked it into the inside pocket of his frock coat. Then he followed Philipse out.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three**_

Samuel Philipse Jr. lived in his father's home still. They entered the house and Ichabod found himself in a narrow hallway. A doorway to his right opened into a large room filled with crates and stacks of papers and books.

"I apologize for the clutter. I'm still sorting through my parents' things since their deaths," he explained embarrassedly.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"You knew my father, I believe."

Ichabod cleared his throat uncomfortably. He had been with Samuel Philipse Sr. when he was killed. "Yes, for a short time."

"My mother had been ill. After he died, she gave up. Within a week, she had passed on as well."

"I'm sorry."

He changed the subject abruptly. "Come. I'll get you settled."

They climbed the staircase at the end of the hall and Philipse led him to a small room with a window that looked out onto the grounds behind the house.

"Make yourself comfortable. I'll send the maid up with water and towels."

"Thank you very much."

There was a narrow bed made up with clean white linens and a dark blue and white quilt in the room, a bureau, an end table and a large desk by the window which he set his bags upon. He opened the bag with his equipment and books, withdrawing the new ledger that he'd bought and his case of pen and ink. The ledger contained notes on the new investigation that he had started working on when he returned to the city. Clearing space on the desk and taking a seat, he opened the ledger to a fresh page and jotted down notes concerning the letter he'd received and the odd circumstances that he'd encountered since his arrival. Then he began to make a list of the people in town that he knew, including the younger Philipse, the Van Rippers and the crone from the Western Woods.

The door opened behind him and the maid entered with the water and towels.

"Thank you."

Ichabod read over what he'd written and frowned. So far he had a puzzling situation and not very much to work with. He rested his chin on his palm and stared at the words he'd written, pondering. His pen was still in his right hand, poised to write. After mulling over his notes for some time he found himself absentmindedly writing the date that he'd left Sleepy Hollow.

It was the stimulus he needed. He raised his head as the idea formed and turned to a new page, dipping his pen in ink and beginning to furiously scribble out a timeline of events. The skirmish in the church had occurred on the thirty-first of October and he'd departed the very next day. On the third of November the two headless corpses of Baltus and Lady Van Tassel were buried, along with the bodies of Dr. Lancaster and Reverend Steenwyck. Between that time and twelve days later the villagers noticed that Katrina and Young Masbath were missing; those were dates for which he would have to pin down a series of events.

The letter from the mysterious entity had arrived on the seventeenth or eighteenth; he received it from the Burgomaster on the morning of the eighteenth and departed the very next morning. His first order of business would be to check the date upon which Philipse had been scheduled to meet with Katrina and work forward from there. He would need to gather information about where each person was at key times. Perhaps someone would recall seeing something and in hindsight view what they had seen with more meaning than they had originally ascribed to it.

He shut the ledger and walked over to the end table across the room. The fatigue of the journey was catching up to him and he was suddenly aware of how grimy he felt. Philipse's maid had brought a glass and a basin with the pitcher and towels. Ichabod poured water into the basin and leaned over, plunging his hands into the cool water and splashing it on his face. Washing his face and hands refreshed him somewhat.

After toweling himself dry he returned to the desk and picked up the ledger and his case with pen and ink. He left the room and headed downstairs to find Philipse.

"Mr. Philipse?"

"I'm here in the sitting room."

Ichabod followed the sound of his voice and joined him in the small sitting room behind the staircase. A fire burned in the hearth and Philipse was sitting in one of the armchairs filling a pipe with tobacco.

"Your room is comfortable, I hope."

"Yes. Thank you for your hospitality. I apologize profusely for the inconvenience. My visit was unexpected as it turns out."

"It's no trouble at all. You must have many questions."

"Well, I did want to confirm some of the dates on which certain events occurred. When were you scheduled to meet with Katrina Van Tassel?"

"Her father and stepmother were buried on the third, along with the others. Katrina was supposed to meet with me four days later. The seventh."

Ichabod wrote the date down.

"And, when she didn't appear you went to her house."

"Yes. She didn't answer when I knocked. I thought maybe she had forgotten and left a note. When she didn't come the next day I returned to her house. The note that I had left was gone."

"You left the note outside the door?"

"It was underneath the door, half in and half out. When I returned there was no sign of it. She must have retrieved it."

"Or perhaps someone else took it," he murmured thoughtfully.

"Perhaps. But for what reason?"

"I don't know. If that's the case it's one of the things that I will hopefully figure out. So, you returned that day, the eighth, and found the note gone."

"She still didn't answer. I was a little concerned, but I assumed that she was feeling poorly and didn't wish to be disturbed."

"And she never sent word that she would be unable to keep your appointment."

"Nor did she reply to the note that I left."

"So, you returned a third day?"

He nodded. "On the fourth day Hans Van Ripper and two other men accompanied me. Theodore and Glenn. They took the door off of its hinges and we searched the house. There was no sign of her. We only found the blood on the parlor floor and the chair that I showed you overturned."

"Then you searched for her elsewhere?"

"Yes. We asked all of the neighbors if they'd seen her. Men searched the woods immediately surrounding the town, the windmills. She was nowhere to be found."

"What about Young Masbath?"

"Well, we had a meeting in the church about Miss Katrina that evening. One of the women stood up and remarked that she hadn't seen him either. More people spoke up then, realizing that they also hadn't seen or heard from him."

"That was the tenth," Ichabod said under his breath as he wrote this information down. "Mr. Philipse, I received the letter on the eighteenth, which means it was sent no later than the sixteenth. Is there anything that occurred between the tenth and the sixteenth that I should be aware of?"

"Not really. We continued to search, now seeking both of them, but to no avail. The blood on the floor of the parlor is most likely Katrina's, but we know nothing further. Some of the women fear that the crone of the Western Woods abducted them. Or that the Hessian killed them and it's only a matter of time before we find the bodies."

Ichabod swallowed nervously. His hand was shaking suddenly and he had to stop writing.

"Do you believe that the crone of the Western Woods is involved?"

"As far as I know she's never harmed anyone. But there are some in town who believe that she made a pact with the devil to summon the Headless Horseman."

"I see." He closed his ledger. "Well, I thank you."

"What will you do now?"

"Now that I have a loose chronology of events that occurred I should like to interview each of the villagers, to find out where they were during key events and to see if they recall seeing or hearing anything."

"Do you truly suspect that someone in this town would want to harm them?"

"Perhaps someone saw or heard something. If it was before they knew of these disappearances they may have paid it no mind. In hindsight something that they recall witnessing could have new meaning."

"Possibly. Memory is a funny thing though. People can make themselves remember things that they didn't actually see or hear."

"Yes, that is true sometimes. There is also a gap…you discovered that both Katrina Van Tassel and Young Masbath were missing on the tenth of November and a letter was sent on the fifteenth or sixteenth. I know that you were searching for both of them in those days in between. Is there anything else you can tell me? Do you know of anyone who had intended to contact the New York constabulary?"

"I'm afraid there is nothing else to tell, Constable Crane. We searched in vain during those days and after that. It didn't occur to me to summon you back here and I don't know of anyone else who was considering it."

**oooOooo**

_Ichabod knew he was dreaming but he couldn't make himself wake up, nor could he alter the outcome of the dream._

_He was crouched down in the same row of pews. His father emerged from the room behind the red door and Ichabod watched him move down the red carpeted aisle of the church, his collar drawn up; the appearance of the headless man. Then the scene changed and he was inside the prominent white church of Sleepy Hollow, the same red door at the end of the aisle in front of him._

_Against his will, he was drawn forward, toward the door and into the room. He knew that he was dreaming the same dream, that there was no such room in the Sleepy Hollow church and that it wasn't possible that his mother would be here__. But the iron maiden still stood before him and he couldn't help but reach out and open it._

_Katrina's bloody body fell forward and into his arms…_

Ichabod woke with a start and bolted upright, gasping for air. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and he was covered in sweat. His eyes began to adjust to the darkness and he glanced around, remembering where he was and the circumstances under which he was here. He eased himself out of bed and moved to the window in the dim light of the waning moon.

He opened the window, allowing the autumn wind to cool him. In the distance there was a low rumble. It might have been thunder except that the night was cloudless and clear. Ichabod recalled the thunderous noise and the lightning-like flashes that scorched through the air when the tangle of roots of the Tree of the Dead opened up into a gaping chasm and the Hessian emerged.

Cursing under his breath, Ichabod shut the window and returned to bed. He remained wide awake, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, dreading the bad news that was to come.

But morning came and there was no evidence that anything unusual had happened during the night. The locals were going about their business as usual and the town seemed peaceful; at least as peaceful as a town could be when two of its citizens were missing inexplicably.

Ichabod met Hans Van Ripper at the stable and was reunited with Gunpowder. The horse recognized him immediately and butted him gently. Ichabod's lips curved into a half-smile and he patted Gunpowder's nose affectionately. The one-eyed steed was somewhat aged and slow, but given Ichabod's lack of equestrian skills he served just fine.

Eventually he would have to ride out to the Western Woods. No one had searched them and it was quite possible that he would find Katrina and Young Masbath there. But he knew that no one would go with him. He would be going alone.

Right now he couldn't face that prospect though, and the townspeople had to be questioned anyway. Unfortunately interviewing them was a frustrating process from the moment he commenced it. Many were reluctant to speak with him. Others were eager to bend his ear. He heard stories about the same events that completely contradicted one another, but he made notes on all of them. Somehow he would have to wade through it all and from bits and pieces of each witness's testimony he would piece together the truth.

All accounts were in agreement that Katrina and Young Masbath had both been present in the cemetery when the bodies were buried. It was after the day of the funerals that accounts became murky and contradictory.

There was a town meeting held in the church on the evening following the day of the burials. The small community had to figure out who would take the places of each of the town's leaders. According to some accounts, everyone had attended, including Katrina and Young Masbath. Other folks remembered Katrina's presence at the meeting but not Young Masbath's; others advised him emphatically that Young Masbath was certainly there but Katrina was not. Still others recalled clearly that neither of them had attended the meeting.

It was very likely that both of them disappeared as early as the fourth of November, the day after the burials; which meant that they were missing for nearly three weeks now.

As with the accounts of the town meeting, he received conflicting information when he asked questions concerning activity around the Van Tassel home. Had anyone seen lights in the window? How soon did they notice that the house remained constantly dark? Did anyone attempt to visit her during the days following the funeral? People often did that to pay their respects and comfort the grieving family. It surprised him that in a small, close-knit town such as this one no one had done so.

Ichabod returned to Philipse's home late that evening feeling weary and downcast, cursing the day that he had first been sent to this confounded, strange little town.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four**_

The next day was Saturday. Exhausted after another night in which he was haunted by dreams of finding Katrina in the iron maiden, Ichabod overslept. It was nearly noon when he finally woke with an exclamation. He never slept until so late in the morning.

He washed and dressed hastily, then walked downstairs. The maid informed him that her master had gone out and asked him if he wanted breakfast. He politely declined and left the house with his bag.

There was no school today, and so the children of the village ran about the clearing between the main road and the woods, shouting and laughing. Ichabod stopped and watched them for a short time, wondering if they had seen anything. Children in their innocence were often more honest than adults. Then again, they were also more imaginative.

Although it no longer appeared to be in use, the makeshift watch tower that had been erected before he arrived in Sleepy Hollow still stood just off the main road. It was here that he'd seen Young Masbath for the first time, standing with his father Jonathan for the last time, the last he was seen alive. By the next morning the boy was an orphan, imploring Ichabod to allow him to assist in catching his father's murderer. Ichabod knew what it was to be alone in the world and instantly felt a certain connection to the boy. He too had lost his mother, at the age of seven, and he was downright terrified of his father; there was no love between them and he'd left home at the age of fifteen.

Ichabod continued walking along the road, leaving the center of town behind and following the path to the Van Tassel home. He stopped and took in the view of the whole house from a few yards back. All was still and quiet, save for the periodic whistle of the wind as it swept across the open fields. The shutters over all of the windows remained open and once in awhile, when a particularly fierce gust picked up, they banged with a loud thud.

Instead of going inside Ichabod circled the house, studying all of the entrances into the house and the area surrounding it. He wasn't sure what exactly he was searching for. Perhaps he was hoping to find a hidden door through which an intruder might have entered and attacked. Maybe Katrina was a victim as well, and not the culprit he had believed her to be. The fact that she had not appeared for her appointment with her attorney pointed to her possible innocence. A twinge of fear and guilt tugged at his heart as he thought it. If she was indeed innocent, then his premature departure from Sleepy Hollow was a graver error than he'd imagined.

Coming around the house again he stopped at the porch where he had bid Young Masbath goodbye. He had a vivid image of the boy's expression and the tears that welled up in his eyes when he scolded him.

"It's my fault," Ichabod muttered to himself angrily.

As he walked away from the house, he stopped and turned around, eyeing it one more time. He shuddered as he stared at the darkened windows in the upper stories, imagining that he could see shadows moving somewhere behind the glass. For a minute a vision of Katrina gazing out of the upper window with tears streaming down her face came to him. The vision faded and he shook himself as he became conscious of his surroundings again.

Ghosts of the past, he thought, and a pang of sadness gripped him and his throat tightened. With a sigh he turned and walked briskly away. Sometimes he was too sentimental for his own good.

Out of the corner of his eye he suddenly spied two pairs of little eyes watching him and he stopped in his tracks. These two had apparently ceased playing in the clearing with the other children and had followed him to the Van Tassel home. They were now crouched in the field of dried out stalks, peering at him.

For a moment he stood still, staring. He was about to speak to them, but they suddenly leaped up, realizing that they had been caught. Two little blonde girls in light blue dresses. They took off at a run, back toward the center of town.

Ichabod shook his head with a sigh and returned to the main street, heading toward the church.

When he reached the clearing again where the children played he spotted the two little girls in blue. They stood near the watch tower and upon seeing him they clambered up into it to hide from him. He stood for a moment, pondering. Then he strode over to the tower, stopping beside the wooden ladder leading up to the enclosed structure.

"You don't need to be afraid," he called up to them.

One of them crawled over to the threshold of the structure and looked out at him.

"It's alright. There is nothing to be afraid of."

She stared at him, remaining silent.

"You're the constable?" the other little girl asked, poking her head out. The first girl elbowed her.

"Shh!"

"I am," Ichabod answered. "I am Constable Crane."

"Are you going to find Miss Katrina?" the braver girl continued, not heeding her friend.

"I'm going to try." Ichabod managed an awkward half smile, wishing to reassure the first, warier girl. "I promise you, I'm here to help," he told her. "You don't need to be afraid."

"We're not in trouble?" she asked.

"Not at all. Someone in Sleepy Hollow wrote a letter to me asking for my help. So I am here to help."

"Oh."

"If you see or remember anything that might help me determine where she is, and where Young Masbath is, will you tell me?"

They nodded in unison.

"Do you remember when you saw her last?"

"No," answered the second girl. The other silently shook her head. "She was always really nice. I hope the Headless Horseman didn't kill her."

By this time, the other children had spied him and they all approached the watch tower.

"Has anyone seen him?" Ichabod asked.

"No. And we're not allowed out into the Western Woods," several of the children said at once.

"And he hasn't come here from the woods," one boy told him.

"But there are other ghosts. We saw them at the house," a second boy chimed in.

"Oh?"

"Yes, the Van Tassel ghosts."

"I see. And…you've actually seen them?"

"Not their faces," he admitted.

"You're wrong," the first boy retorted. "It's not a ghost, it's the old witch from the Western Woods."

"How do you know?" his friend challenged.

"Because she was wearing all white. She always has her face covered."

"Yes. I met her once," Ichabod replied.

"You did?" several of the children asked.

"I did."

"Was she scary?"

Ichabod couldn't help but laugh lightly. "Just a little bit. But she didn't harm me. Are you afraid of her?"

"She made a pact with the devil and summoned the Headless Horseman."

"We're not supposed to go near her."

"I see. Well, I thank you. You've all been very helpful. One more thing. Has anyone seen lights in the windows of the Van Tassel home? Candles burning?"

Some of them said they had seen a light in the window during the day, some said it was at night; still others shook their heads or merely shrugged.

They waved to him as he bid them good day. He walked back to the Philipse home. Perhaps he would be there now. Ichabod was hoping that he could persuade him to hand over the key to the Van Tassel home. Enough people had claimed to see movement and activity there that it was worth doing another search of the place. Perhaps there were rooms in the house that he was not aware of, secret places where someone could hide.

The answer to the more difficult question of why someone would hide there was something that he couldn't even begin to think about yet.

**oooOooo**

Philipse wasn't home when Ichabod returned. There was still daylight and he decided to set off for the Western Woods, hoping that he would be able to locate the crone's cave again. The day was grey and gloomy, as were all of the days in Sleepy Hollow it seemed, and a chill wind blew, rustling the dried brown leaves that covered the path or rested in thick piles around the trunks of the trees, and prying loose some of the stragglers that remained on the nearly bare branches.

He had no trouble finding the cave as it turned out and he knew immediately when he was drawing close. The wind stilled, the forest became eerily silent and the air was thick with a dark nameless something, a sinister essence or presence that he otherwise couldn't specifically describe.

The wooden door of the hovel that was built into the stone cave was shut when he arrived. He dismounted and tied Gunpowder to a nearby tree. His heart was thudding in his chest as he recalled his last visit to the crone. She'd been channeling a spirit of some sort that told him where to find the Horseman and it nearly strangled him. He took a deep breath and walked to the door.

No one answered when he knocked. After several minutes he gingerly pushed the door open.

"I beg pardon. Is anyone here?" he called out timidly.

When he received no answer he ventured in further and looked around. Along one wall there was a line of dead ravens hung upside down by their claws. A bucket of water alongside the table where the crone was working last time was filled with floating bodies of dead, decapitated cardinals.

"Mmph," Ichabod groaned involuntarily. The hairs on the back of his neck were prickling and chills ran through him. Besides being an utterly macabre scene, he loved cardinals. They had been his favorite since he was a little boy and he couldn't fathom any reasoning that justified beheading such lovely birds that sang such beautiful songs.

There was no point in searching the cave any further. Its inhabitant wasn't here and the blood that stained the table and ground might have belonged to any number of rodents or birds that the woman cut up as part of her magic spells. If there was human blood in the mix, there would be no discerning it.

Back out in the fresh air he inhaled deeply, realizing that he'd been holding his breath, so foul was the stench in the cave. He went back to the tree where he'd tied up Gunpowder and stopped, considering whether he should wait for the crone to return or not.

Ichabod thought of his conversation with the younger Philipse the evening that he had arrived. They hadn't found any headless corpses but they feared that both Katrina and Young Masbath were the latest victims. The writer of the letter informed him of the same. No one had searched the Western Woods however, so afraid were they to come here. It was possible that the bodies were deep in this forest where no one would venture, perhaps near the Tree of the Dead, the gateway through which the Hessian traveled between this world and the underworld. With any luck, there were not bodies to find because they were alive, possibly hiding somewhere.

Dread filled his frame as it became clear to him what his next step had to be, a step that he'd been postponing for as long as he could. He sighed and mounted Gunpowder, then set off, following the Indian trail that would lead him to the Tree of the Dead and the Horseman's grave.

But both were as he'd left them the last time he was here. The blood had dried on the trunk of the tree and the thick roots at the base of it hadn't completely closed over the heads of the villagers that the Hessian had collected, leaving them visible. Katrina's and Young Masbath's heads were not there, he discovered with relief.

The Hessian's grave remained open, the skeleton of the body now half covered with fallen leaves and dirt that had been stirred up and deposited in the hole in the ground by the wind. Unsurprisingly his head had not been returned.

A search of the surrounding area yielded nothing. Thankfully, there was no sign of them, and no sign of their corpses, headless or otherwise.

**oooOooo**

That evening, when Ichabod finally found him at home, Samuel Philipse Jr. reluctantly agreed to turn the key to the Van Tassel home over to him.

"I don't know that there is anything to discover there. We searched the house on the day you arrived and found nothing. What makes you think that you will find something now?"

"Sometimes one can discover something upon a second search that was missed the first time. Besides, I believe it is a good idea to watch the house. Perhaps the culprit will return."

"Or if we're lucky Miss Van Tassel and the boy will return."

"Yes."

"It's a long shot, Constable."

"Perhaps."

"Well, I don't need to go into the house anymore. I suppose it will do no harm for you to keep the key temporarily."

"Thank you."

"Have you discovered who sent you the letter yet?"

"I have not. Whoever it is clearly didn't want me to know they had written. For all I know it could have been one of the children that I saw playing in the clearing today."

Philipse looked surprised. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Of course not. Though, judging from the handwriting, it isn't impossible," he replied with a weary sigh. "More likely it was someone writing with their non-dominant hand, however."

The maid appeared in the doorway of the sitting room where they were speaking and announced that dinner was ready.

"Anneke is a terrific cook. I hope you will join me for dinner tonight, Constable Crane."

"Yes, thank you."

They ceased talk of the crisis at hand during dinner and ate silently, once in awhile remarking generally about neutral topics. As Philipse had promised, Anneke's cooking was delicious and Ichabod ate unusually heartily. It had been over twenty-four hours since he'd eaten a substantial meal.

"You slept in this morning," Philipse remarked.

"Yes. I hope to have an earlier start tomorrow."

"Our Sunday church service begins at nine o'clock in the morning. You are welcome to attend."

Ichabod had grown up with a father who was a pious reverend of the church and yet thought nothing of torturing his mother and others to death; he no longer had faith in God or religion. It was then that he'd learned the hard lesson that villainy wears many masks, and that the mask of virtue was the most dangerous one of all. The same lesson that he'd attempted to impart to Young Masbath when he turned his back on the boy, consumed with bitterness and disappointment in Katrina.

"Thank you," he replied. "Perhaps I will."

**oooOooo**

Cracking thunder woke Ichabod during the night and he sat up with a start. Through the window he saw a flash of lightning. There was no rainfall and after the flash the night became silent.

He stood up and moved to the window, gazing out. The night was overcast, but a thin crescent moon peeked out from behind the clouds. In just two or three days they would have a new moon and the night would be even darker. He stood tautly, waiting for the next flash of lightning and an accompanying thunder clap. Either the storm was far away or it had ended as quickly as it began, for neither came.

Again he thought with a shudder of the rumbling thunder and lightning flashes that accompanied the Horseman's journey out of and back into the depths of the Tree of the Dead. He was about to turn away from the window and return to bed when something caught his eye.

The window in his room on the upper story of Philipse's house looked out on the open fields behind the back of his home and beyond the center of town. He realized that he could see the Van Tassel home in the distance, at least the upper stories, and he imagined for a moment that he saw the flicker of a candle in one of the windows facing him.

At first he thought he had dreamed it. But moments later he glimpsed another flicker of light, this time in the adjacent window, as if someone was walking across the room holding a candle, moving from window to window.

After dressing hurriedly and pulling on his boots, he moved to the door where his frock coat was hanging on a hook. He donned it and felt in his pocket for the key to the Van Tassel home that he'd retrieved from Philipse. Then he quietly left the room, eased the door closed behind him and tiptoed down the stairs so as not to wake the rest of the household.

His overcoat and scarf were in the closet downstairs by the front door. It was late November and already quite cold so he pulled these on before silently leaving the house.

Clouds obscured the little moonlight that there was and Ichabod was grateful that he'd thought to bring a lantern with him. His heart was fluttering as he walked along the empty village road toward the Van Tassel house, glancing about nervously. He began to go over the questions that he had in his mind, the clues that he was aware of so far and the conversations that he'd had with various villagers, including the children. A rational train of thought that would take his mind off of his confounded fears and make him cease jumping at the sight of his own shadow.

He looked up at the upper windows of the Van Tassel home as he walked towards it. There didn't seem to be any sign of life or light there now and he halted, considering turning back.

Mustering his courage again, he kept walking toward the house. If he found nothing and no one there then this would be a trip made in the night for nothing. But if there was someone lurking in the Van Tassel house, the sooner he discovered them the sooner he could figure out what was going on. The more time went by, the more urgent and less hopeful Young Masbath's and Katrina's predicament became.

Ichabod quietly inserted the key into the lock of the front door and opened it. He pushed it open gingerly and stopped in the doorway, listening for another sound inside. There was none and he moved further into the cold house, silently shutting the front door behind him.

Listening for the tiniest noise, his pace was slow and deliberate. If someone was here they would see the light of his lantern, he suddenly thought nervously. But it was preferable to standing in pure blackness.

Suddenly he thought he heard a soft thud above him, like an object hitting the floor, but in a moment there was nothing but silence.

"Who's here?" he called out after mustering the courage.

But he received no answer. The house remained silent and still.

"I'm imagining things," he murmured.

Still, he had to make certain. He'd seen the flicker of light in one of the windows on the second floor, and with trepidation he made his way over to the stairs. Their creaking was painfully loud and he climbed the steps one by one, cringing each time he heard the wood squeak or groan beneath his boot and listening to the house intently, trying to hear over his pounding heart and ready to run at a moment's notice.

After what seemed an eternity he had reached the top of the stairs. He stopped and listened carefully. No one appeared to be in the house now. Yet he was certain that he'd seen a light moving from one window to the next. Perhaps his mind had been playing tricks on him.

"This town will drive me mad yet," he muttered irritably.

It was warmer on the second floor than it had been downstairs and the smell of burnt tobacco lingered in the air. Someone had been here, smoking. For a moment he thought of the children's comments about the Van Tassel ghosts, then immediately shook it off. He couldn't believe that there had been a ghost smoking here. The Hessian was a spirit acting by someone's will, a mortal someone; even if there was something supernatural occurring here, he was certain that he would find a flesh-and-blood human being behind it.

His footsteps seemed to guide his body without his thinking about it. He turned right and moved quietly down the hall, drawn to the room at the far end. The parlor where he'd encountered Katrina reading and the room that he would always consider the heart of this house. He closed the door behind him, lit the candles in the room and set the lantern down on the end table.

Although this room was on the opposite side of the house, away from where he could have possibly viewed it from his window in the Philipse home, someone had indeed been in here. The fire had ceased burning in the hearth only a short time ago and the smell of burnt tobacco was strongest here. Ichabod knelt down and eyed the newly-formed ash, observed the smell of smoke. Though they seemed to have left before he arrived and it appeared that no one was in the house any longer, he hadn't missed them by very much time. And perhaps they would show themselves again if he waited long enough.

Had Katrina come home? He couldn't believe that it was she who was smoking. But who else would be lurking in this room? If she was here, why hadn't she come forward? Surely she must realize that her neighbors and friends worried about her. And what about Young Masbath?

He straightened up and walked about the room, looking it over. A lightly drawn chalk circle on the floor caught his eye. But there was no evil eye drawn on the inside of it, like he'd seen under his bed when he slept here, like the one she'd drawn in the church. There were no pictures, no symbols drawn inside of this circle, but he spied what appeared to be drops of oil. He frowned, puzzled, then reached out and gingerly touched the oil with his finger. Moments later he felt a slight burning sensation on that part of his skin that had touched the oil and he drew his handkerchief out, hastily wiping it away.

"What on earth?" he muttered.

The twinge of burning subsided a short time later. Ichabod examined the floor inside the circle, but there was nothing else to observe other than the drops of oil. He stood up and moved to the couch near the fireplace, sinking into it with a weary sigh. Katrina had been seated on this couch that early morning when he found her awake, reading. He could still remember every thought that he had, every physical sensation he felt the moment he set eyes on her, dressed only in her thin nightgown and a robe that lay half-open, exposing her bare skin and the top edge of her breasts. The fragrance of honeysuckle seemed to permeate the room again now as he recalled the way her golden hair shimmered in the light of the fire, the way the honeysuckle scent of her intoxicated him when she drew near. They had stood together quietly then, gazing out of the window that overlooked vast open fields, and she had explained that the land they were looking at belonged to Peter Van Garrett. He had given her father an acre of land and a broken down cottage. She had once been poor and living humbly, too, he learned.

She gave him the book of spells then, a gift that he'd refused at first, for he didn't believe in such things. But she disarmed him, asking how he could be so certain of everything. He had to take it. Then when he opened the front cover and saw her late mother's name written there his throat had constricted. He was thinking of his own mother who he'd lost at a young age and was deeply moved by the generosity of the gift.

They rode out to the cottage ruins together then and she showed him the hearth where she'd played as a child, drawing in the dirt and eerily imitating the symbols that he'd seen his mother draw in the ashes when he was a boy. It was here that he learned that she shared his love of cardinals.

A loud creaking to his left stirred Ichabod from his reverie and he sat up with a start and turned toward the parlor door. He rose to his feet and reached into the pocket of his frock coat, closing a shaking hand around his pistol.

"Who's there?" he cried out.

"And I thought you had left this place, Constable Crane."

The voice was female, familiar, the words crooned, somehow seductive and sardonic at the same time. Ichabod fumbled to extract his gun from his pocket as the door opened.

A figure dressed in white from head to toe stood there, the familiar white veil covering her face. He recognized the vague outline of the crone's features through the almost transparent white gauze that shielded her visage. But when she reached up and pulled the veil up and back off of her face he realized that he was mistaken.

"But then it was obvious right away that you had a soft spot for my dear stepdaughter."

He gasped audibly upon finding himself staring open-mouthed at Lady Van Tassel and the world around him seemed to come to a screeching halt. His eyes wandered to the hand that she'd cut, seeking out the wound.

She knew instantly what he was searching for, and she held her palm up to show it to him and grinned. The expression on her face was pure wickedness.

His mind was reeling as he tried to put the pieces together, unable to believe that the reality in front of him could be possible. Everyone knew that she had been killed by the Hessian. He'd seen her corpse, clothed in her velvet dress of rich green and purple, the angry self-inflicted knife cut on her palm clearly visible from the carriage window. She appeared now as she had in life, with her head intact, the nasty cut still on her palm, though it had healed somewhat. But he knew that she wasn't a ghost.

Gradually he began to grasp what had happened, his mind working in slow-motion, as if through molasses. That corpse had been someone else's, the identical cut on the palm made by Lady Van Tassel so that everyone would be convinced that it was she who had died. The elaborate scheme that he had imagined Katrina to be guilty of was actually her stepmother's.

Ichabod tried to speak but the words wouldn't come. His eyes lost their focus and a long sigh escaped from his lips as he sank to the floor, fainting.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five**_

"_What have I done?"_

Ichabod's eyes fluttered open as he came to, realizing that it was he who had spoken these words. For a moment he didn't know where he was, but upon raising his head he discovered that he was still in the parlor of the Van Tassel house, slumped in the plush armchair.

Everything came back to him in a rush of memory. He recalled coming here after seeing the light in the window, the appearance of Lady Van Tassel and the thoughts he had before he fainted. Shame and remorse seized him; he had jumped to terrible conclusions about Katrina and she had not been guilty after all. Worse, his bumbling had left her and the child at the mercy of a dangerous murderess.

_Dear God, what have I done?_

His right index finger still burned slightly and he remembered the chalk circle and the oil on the floor in the middle of it, which he'd touched with that fingertip. It was the skin that had been in contact with the oil that still felt somewhat inflamed. He could not imagine what kind of oil it was, who would be using it or why. Perhaps it was Lady Van Tassel casting another evil spell.

He sat up straight and glanced around him. The room was intact, the lantern he brought with him remained where it was on the end table beside him and the candles in the room were still lit. Lady Van Tassel was nowhere in sight.

Had he been dreaming? Where had she gone?

"I'm still here, Constable Crane."

Ichabod started at the sound of her voice. She suddenly emerged from a corner of the room as if from out of nowhere. She'd removed the white veil from her head and her long blonde hair, normally pulled up and back into a neat chignon, cascaded down thick and loose about her shoulders. Hers was a cold, dangerous beauty, her visage serene and sinister all at once. He knew some of what she was capable of, but he had no doubt that she had myriad abilities that he was not yet aware of.

"It's good to see you awake at last. I thought you might remain unconscious until long after dawn." She smirked slyly as she spoke. "I took the liberty of moving you from the floor into the chair. You lying prone on the floor was a most unbecoming sight."

He raised his chin, attempting to look as brave as possible.

"Where is Katrina? And Young Masbath?" he demanded.

"I have no idea."

She didn't hesitate before answering, nor did she need to think about her reply first. Judging from her outward appearance she was telling the truth, but this woman was wily and cunning. Deception was a way of life for her.

"I don't believe you," he answered finally.

"Why would I lie about such a thing? If you must know the truth, I've been trying to find them again too. When I saw the light in the window I thought they were here. Imagine my pleasant surprise upon discovering you instead."

With a malevolent grin she approached and took a seat on the couch beside the armchair, leaning toward him and staring directly into his eyes.

"After you left Sleepy Hollow I returned here to this house. Katrina was in the sitting room downstairs. I can be very stealthy when I want to be. Before she knew I was there I was close enough to hit her from behind and knock her out. I took her to the windmill. But before I could take a lock of her hair and summon the Hessian to come for her that pesky boy appeared, taking it upon himself to protect her. The little pest. I still have a bump on my head where he hit me with that shovel. When I woke up the two of them were nowhere to be found."

He gaped at her. "Take a lock of her hair?" he echoed.

"For the spell," she explained. "A lock of hair, a nail clipping, even a piece of clothing that she wore was needed. So the Hessian would know to come specifically for her. She still manages to elude me somehow and even he is unable to find her, a phenomenon that I still cannot explain, although I have my suspicions. A lock of her hair would have made the spell stronger; perhaps it fails because that element was missing. But as long as she lives she stands in my way. She'll return now that you've come back to town, and I'll be waiting for her."

"What?"

"Surely it isn't lost on you, Constable, that my darling stepdaughter returns your feelings. And it's quite understandable." As she said this she reached over and ran a long slender finger along the outline of his jaw lightly, seductively. He shivered involuntarily. "You _are_ beautiful."

Ichabod stared at her in a daze.

"You saw the same light in the window. They were here already. Katrina was, at least. She disappeared before you and I both arrived," she continued, her hand thankfully retreating from his face. She stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of him. "I have no doubt that she will return. As will the boy, since I expect that they are together now. He seems to be very loyal to you. I only have to wait."

The chances of Lady Van Tassel listening to reason were slim to non-existent, but he had to try.

"Are you truly so greedy that you think nothing of murdering innocent people? You were married to Baltus Van Tassel and as his wife what was his was yours. Was that not enough for you?"

"Katrina was still to be the sole heiress after his death. And it is she who now has everything. Besides, this is about more than the money, Constable. My family was wronged by everyone in Sleepy Hollow. By the Van Garretts and by the rest of the townspeople, for they all served him."

"Then you want revenge," he murmured. "And that's why you took the Hessian's skull. What did the people of this town do to you?"

"Why would it concern you?"

"If you are intending to harm me, and I have no doubt that you are, I believe that I have a right to know why," he argued, rising to his feet to face her.

"Perhaps you're right," she sighed. "After all, why should I deny you the pleasure? Well then. If you must know."

She continued to pace as she spoke.

"My father worked for the Van Garretts many years ago, when I was a child. We lived in a cottage on his land. The old cottage that now stands in ruins. You were there."

It must have been the cottage where Katrina had lived. Her last words struck him a moment later. She'd been watching his every move during his first trip here.

"When my father died Van Garrett evicted us. We had very little money and nowhere to go. No one in this town would help us because my mother was accused of practicing witchcraft."

"I don't believe it," he exclaimed breathlessly.

She halted and whirled around, fixing a sharp gaze upon him. "You believe that I'm lying?"

"It seems to me that every woman in this town practices witchcraft," he continued passionately. "I can't believe that your mother is the only one…why on earth would the townspeople single her out for that?"

"Van Garrett had all of the influence in this town. It was he who stirred them up into a frenzy and turned everyone against us."

"But…why? Why would he do that?"

"My sister and I were very young. Although I expect that my mother knew his reasons, she never spoke of them to us. Looking back on those days I can venture a guess. After all, my mother was quite beautiful and desirable to the men of this town. But that is of no importance now. Van Garrett gave our cottage and the land around it to his cousin, Baltus Van Tassel, who moved in with his wife and girl baby. Meanwhile we had to flee into the Western Woods. My mother, my sister and I lived in a cave there, completely on our own and fending for ourselves."

"The cave…where that old woman lives?"

"That old woman is my sister. She's younger than she looks. But she lost her mind years ago and never cared about her appearance anyway."

"How did you come to marry Baltus Van Tassel?"

"I came to this house to care for Elizabeth Van Tassel when she became ill."

"You were the nurse."

"Yes. Under my care her illness slowly became worse. There was nothing anyone could do." She spoke these last words with mock sorrow. "It wasn't long before Baltus turned to me for comfort."

Ichabod's jaw dropped. "You murdered Katrina's mother," he uttered breathlessly, incredulously.

"An herb that must be used carefully. It aids with sleep in small doses. A slightly larger dose brings hallucinations and delirium. In even larger doses it's poisonous. The difficult part was increasing the dosage slowly so that she gradually deteriorated. If I'd adjusted it too drastically her death might have been seen as suspicious. No, it had to appear to be the outcome of the natural progression of her illness. It took time and patience. Everyone was convinced that her hallucinations and delirium were caused by her brain fever. When she finally succumbed, it was no surprise to anyone."

"Oh, dear God," he whispered. "Katrina."

Did she have any idea now that her stepmother had murdered her beloved mother?

"You already figured out the rest. Peter Van Garrett fathered the widow's child and accordingly changed his will. All of the town elders knew of it, except for Baltus of course. But they had no qualms about keeping secrets from Baltus. They were all envious and resentful of him, though they pretended to be his friend. Typical."

"And…you killed them all through the Horseman to keep them silent."

"Eventually it became necessary. After the servant Masbath's funeral the drunken magistrate let it slip to you that there were five victims in four graves. He had to be done away with immediately."

Ichabod shook his head in wonder. Lady Van Tassel and everyone else had already left the graveside by the time the magistrate approached him. How did she know what Magistrate Philipse had said to him? He recalled that Reverend Steenwyck was standing several feet away, watching them. Had he told her?

She stopped pacing and turned to face him, peering directly and pointedly into his eyes.

"Yes, Constable Crane. All of them were in my power in some manner and I knew all that occurred. The Reverend lusted after me, as you witnessed after so slyly following me to the woods. I knew of the doctor's…indiscretions…with the serving girl Sara. By promising to keep his secret I was assured that he would keep mine. Fear kept the notary silent. And the magistrate…that is until you came along. You have that kind of face, I guess; he couldn't help but confide in you."

Indeed Lady Van Tassel seemed to be able to read his mind, he thought with a shudder. Under any circumstances that would be unsettling; but the fact that this woman who was evil to the core could know his thoughts completely unnerved him. He turned away from her piercing gaze, suddenly remembering the chalk circle drawn on the floor. The skin on his finger tingled as he thought of the remnants of the strange oil inside of it that he'd touched.

"I saw you leave the morning after Baltus died. You looked so forlorn and devastated, Constable Crane. What prompted you to return?"

"Someone here in this town wrote to me." He thought for a moment and turned back to her, eyeing her suspiciously. "Perhaps you are the one who sent me the letter."

He received no response.

"Perhaps it is part of your game," he continued.

She began to laugh malevolently and moved toward him again, stopping mere inches away. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. Though I would so enjoy playing games with you, Constable."

Flinching involuntarily, he lowered himself down into the plush armchair again, desperately needing to sit down and to put some space between himself and this woman.

"You said that…Katrina was here…"

"Surely an observant man of science such as you noticed the evidence that she left." She walked toward the other side of the room and pointed to the lightly drawn circle on the floor.

"Didn't you…?"

"That is Katrina's work, not mine."

"Katrina?" he repeated breathlessly.

Were they both practicing black magic then?

"You said that you don't know where she is, and that even the Horseman cannot find her."

"That's right, Constable. But eventually she will have to reckon with me. She may draw whatever circles she likes on the floor. Her magic is no match for mine."

"But she has succeeded in eluding you, and the instrument of your vengeance," Ichabod reminded her softly.

Lady Van Tassel didn't answer. She turned away and resumed her pacing, and Ichabod stood up once more. Slowly he took a step toward the door. He needed to get away from her, to think, to get some air so he could clear his head. And he needed to ponder his course of action. Perhaps if he could find Katrina and Young Masbeth before she did…

"Going so soon?" she taunted, rounding on him again.

"Neither my hands nor my feet are bound. There is nothing to stop me from walking out that door whenever I please."

But as a precaution he slid his hand into his pocket instinctively. His fingers closed around the pistol while he pondered whether it might not be a good idea to just shoot her and be done with everything.

"Unless you plan on summoning the Hessian to come for me this instant I shall take my leave."

He was still listening for the sound of thunder, wondering if minutes from now the Horseman would break in the door with his ax and take his life. At the same time a part of him knew somehow that she wasn't prepared to kill him just yet.

"Even in the event of my death, the spell cannot be broken while the Horseman's skull remains out of his reach. My magic will only become more powerful. You cannot stop me."

"Perhaps not." He swallowed nervously. "I know nothing about the workings of magic nor do I have any idea where you hid the Hessian's skull. If I did know then I should return it to him and these assassinations would be certain to end. For now, I have heard your testimony. I am aware of your intentions and your reasoning."

She studied him carefully, a smirk still lingering around her lips. "And what will you do then? Try to arrest me?"

He had no answer for her. Without a word he sidled to the door and opened it. She called after him as he stepped into the hallway.

"Constable." He stopped but did not turn around to face her. "I assure you that if you try to tell the townspeople I'm alive they won't believe you. And you won't be able to prove it to them."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six**_

As soon as Ichabod exited the room it occurred to him that even if he found Katrina and Young Masbath first, he'd only be putting them in worse danger, for he would be leading Lady Van Tassel straight to them. No doubt she would follow him now as she did before.

Feeling utterly stymied he made his way out of the house as the sky began to brighten with the first hints of dawn. He slowly walked back to Samuel Philipse Jr.'s home, absorbed in his gloomy thoughts and still somewhat in shock.

"_How could I have been so stupid?"_

He recalled meeting Lady Van Tassel in the kitchen after his argument with Katrina and he remembered their confrontation concerning the cut on her hand. In the early hours of that morning he'd followed her out of the house. That was when he'd discovered that she was having an illicit affair with Reverend Steenwyck and when, in the middle of their carnal act, she'd taken a jagged-edged dagger and cut the palm of her own hand. As the blood began to stream out of the wound, she rubbed the reverend's back, smearing the blood all over his skin. Ichabod had turned away then, wondering at her perverse ritual, and he hurried off, wanting to be as far away from there as possible.

When he returned to his room in the Van Tassel home with Young Masbath he discovered that while he had been out following her stepmother Katrina had snatched the evidence he'd taken from Notary Hardenbrook's office from the desk drawer. He knew immediately that she was the thief and where to look for her, and he rode Gunpowder out to the ruins of the old cottage that had once been her home. Approaching the open field he saw her white mare in the distance, and when he reached the ruins he found her crouched before the old hearth. It was alive with fire now and the last remnants of Van Garrett's will, proof of Baltus Van Tassel's motive for the Sleepy Hollow murders, were being devoured by the flames.

They'd argued then. Katrina had been so angry and hurt that he suspected her father, insisting that he didn't know him and would never believe such a thing if he did. Ichabod was certain that he was right about Baltus Van Tassel's guilt and it tore him apart to have to be the one to point out the facts that proved it. She still wouldn't hear it and he was convinced that she just couldn't accept the truth; she was too close to her father to believe that he was a cold-blooded murderer.

When she told him that she thought he had no heart her words cut him like a knife. She mounted her horse, cursing the day he came to Sleepy Hollow, and rode off, leaving him standing there staring sadly after her.

Ichabod cared too much for Katrina and he didn't want to leave things that way. He returned to the Van Tassel home and asked for her when he met Lady Van Tassel in the kitchen, hoping that he could at least convince her that he never wanted to hurt her but that he had to pursue the truth.

The Van Tassel servants had all fled from the village, fearful of further attacks by the Horseman, and so she was preparing the food herself. She set aside the pot that she was about to put on the hearth and went upstairs to Katrina's room. When she returned she told him that Katrina would not come down and did not wish to see or speak with him.

His heart was broken in two. "I see," he'd answered stiffly, attempting to mask his feelings. "Thank you."

She stopped him as he turned away and started to leave the room. He had caught a glimpse of the cut on her hand when he first encountered her in the kitchen, and it immediately made him think of that morning and the sight of her with the reverend. Averting his eyes and blushing he made a conscious effort to not look at her hand again during their conversation. But she confronted him about it when he began to leave the room, pushing her hand in his face for him to view the cut, confessing that she knew that he followed her, that the reverend gave her no choice and demanding that he promise not to tell her husband.

"How could I have been so blind?" he seethed now, furious at himself. "She was setting me up to be the perfect witness that day!"

He remembered the way she raised her arm high and slowly sliced her palm with the knife. When she smeared blood on the reverend's back her movements were slow and deliberate. Everything theatrical and easily visible. And just in case he'd missed anything, she went out of her way to call attention to the cut on her hand when they were in the kitchen.

Some detective he was.

The corpse was headless of course and he wondered whose body it actually was. She said that no one would believe him if he told them she was alive, but he had to try.

Katrina and Young Masbath had somehow managed to elude the Horseman and Lady Van Tassel's black magic, but that didn't mean they were safe, he thought fretfully. Winter was coming and they could easily become victims to the elements or, unable to obtain food, they could starve.

He would do anything to see them again, alive and well, and he murmured a silent prayer to the heavens.

Philipse stepped out of the dining room and into the hallway when Ichabod returned to the house and came through the front door.

"Constable Crane," he exclaimed in surprise. "I didn't realize you were already up and about. Please join me for breakfast."

Ichabod hesitated for a moment. After his chilling encounter with Lady Van Tassel and having only slept for half the night he was shaken up and fatigued. But he was also feeling strangely weak from hunger despite the large meal he'd eaten the previous evening. Wonderful aromas were wafting in from the kitchen already and he could smell the coffee brewing, convincing him to linger downstairs a bit longer and have some breakfast.

"Thank you. I will."

The cook was setting down a plate of stroopwafels and a bowl of preserves as they took their seats at the table. She hurried off to the kitchen and returned with a plate of sausages.

"There is something I must discuss with you after breakfast, Mr. Philipse."

Once more Anneke emerged from the kitchen with a pot of coffee and poured each of them a cup.

"It's Sunday, Constable. Don't tell me that you're still working today," Philipse chuckled when she was gone.

"This is actually something…it's a discovery from last night. It's important that I talk to someone as soon as possible. I…it wasn't my intention to disturb your Sunday, and if you prefer to speak after church this morning…"

"We can adjourn to the sitting room after breakfast. There will be time to talk before we have to leave."

**oooOooo**

"Are you mad, Constable Crane?"

Those were the first words that Samuel Philipse Jr. spoke after staring at him incredulously in silence for several minutes.

"That's the most outrageous story I've ever heard!"

"It's the truth. She is alive. I spoke to her."

"What made you traipse over to the Van Tassel house in the middle of the night?"

"I woke up during the night and got out of bed. When I went to the window I saw a light in one of the windows of the Van Tassel home. Someone was there, so I went to investigate. She was there, in the parlor with me."

"Maybe while you were there you dozed off without realizing it and dreamed all of it. Before he died in the church that night Baltus told us that he'd seen the Horseman kill her."

"It was no dream," Ichabod insisted. "I don't know how I can prove it, but you must believe me. She…somehow she was able to create the illusion for her husband that she'd been killed."

"How?" He shook his head. "That would have been some feat of magic."

"Or she had an accomplice. When I first came to this village Brom Van Brunt played a prank on me. He dressed up as the Headless Horseman and chased me on horseback. Someone may have played the Horseman that day as well, someone who was in league with her."

Philipse cocked his head to the side, reflecting on these words. "That's an interesting theory, and certainly plausible. I thought the whole village was in the church already that night except for Baltus and his wife. He came in last, followed by you and the boy. Of course the church was in a commotion and someone else may have slipped in unseen. I can't vouch for my memory of who was there and who wasn't."

He fell silent and remained deep in thought for a few minutes.

"Even if it's true," he finally spoke up. "How would this help us to locate Miss Katrina and Young Masbath? You said she claimed that she didn't know where they were."

"She might have been lying. But the point is that she is the one controlling the Headless Horseman. No one in this village is safe. She may summon him to kill any one of you if she finds it necessary."

"Let's assume for a moment that what you say is fact. What can we do about it?"

"If we can recover the Horseman's skull and return it to him he won't need to kill and take heads. And he won't be under anyone's control anymore. If Katrina…Miss Katrina and Young Masbath are alive and in hiding..."

Philipse appeared incredulous and Ichabod groaned inwardly. He found it both intriguing and frustrating that while the folks of Sleepy Hollow believed that the ghost of a Hessian soldier rose from the grave and killed people to take their heads, when he proposed a theory that perhaps that ghost was being controlled it was dismissed by them as madness. Of course he had never in his life believed that he would ever give credence to such a wild tale. But the residents here were deeply superstitious; he could not fathom how they could believe in one wild tale while completely discounting another similar one.

"You say that Lady Van Tassel summoned the Horseman to murder Peter Van Garrett and the others in order to inherit all of the property that belonged to him, and to Baltus Van Tassel. And she has the same reason for attempting to kill Katrina."

"Yes."

"But in order for her to receive the property she would have to sign the papers, just as Katrina was originally going to have to sign them. If she has succeeded in murdering Katrina she will have to reveal the fact that she is still alive eventually in order for the property to be transferred into her name. She will have to give a very convincing explanation. As soon as she comes forward and shows that she is still alive she will be under suspicion. No, Constable, if she planned everything else so carefully; after all that she wouldn't commit such a foolish oversight as that."

"I've been a constable in New York City for several years now. You would be surprised at the foolish things that criminals do sometimes, things that give them away and get them caught after they've planned everything so cleverly and eluded the law for a long time."

"The corpse was dressed in her clothing also…"

"She could have dressed the body in her clothing before it was found."

"True. She would have to be very strong, wouldn't she?"

"I suppose so," Ichabod replied dejectedly, shaking his head. "A dead body is extremely heavy."

Philipse was clearly determined to disprove his story and Ichabod's spirits were sinking lower. Lady Van Tassel had been right. This man didn't believe him because he didn't _want_ to believe him. He imagined it would be the same with anyone else he told.

"I can see that your theory is possible, Constable, but it's one that you will have to prove before we bring this information to any other member of the town council. And certainly we cannot allow this information to leak out to the rest of the village yet."

Ichabod sighed. "I'll keep this from everyone else, I promise."

Philipse glanced at the clock on the shelf. "It's almost time for the service."

"Of course. I apologize for delaying you."

"You didn't. I'm glad you told me about this. Will you be coming as well?"

"I'm afraid I'm quite fatigued and must decline. I thank you for the invitation however."

**oooOooo**

Ichabod sank into the chair at the desk in his room and dropped his head into his hands. He only hoped that telling Samuel Philipse Jr. the truth about Lady Van Tassel wasn't a mistake. After his initial reaction of shock Philipse appeared to regard his theory seriously and he had conversed respectfully and civilly with him. Still, he may have merely been masking his true feelings. He was at church now, sure to meet with the other town leaders afterward. There was a chance that he would repeat the story to them, spinning it so that Ichabod appeared to be insane.

He supposed that the next step would be the villagers seizing him and running him out of town on a rail.

The church bells rang out, signaling that services were to start soon, and Ichabod raised his head and gazed out the window. Today the sky was grey and cloudy, just as it was every day in Sleepy Hollow, and the town and its surroundings seemed to be shrouded in mist.

Feeling overcome with drowsiness after a time Ichabod stood up and removed his shoes, then went to the bed and lay down. It wasn't long before he drifted off into restless sleep filled with disjointed dreams of Lady Van Tassel grinning at him malevolently, cutting her palm, holding her palm out in front of his eyes, running her finger along his jaw line.

When he woke with a start some time later he felt groggy and disturbed by these dreams; but an idea flashed in his mind, inspired by them, and he leaped out of bed when he thought of it and hurried over to the desk. He opened his bag and pulled out one of the medical texts that he'd brought with him, then thumbed through the volume until he found the relevant chapter.

Philipse had not returned from church yet by the time Ichabod set the book aside, pulled on his boots and his frock coat and ventured downstairs again. He went to the sitting room and paced, debating whether he should head off to the church to meet him or stay there and wait. He decided that the latter option would be safer in the event that Philipse had mentioned his story to the others. God knows what they all thought of him as it was.

While he paced he mulled over the idea that had come to him and considered his options for carrying it out. The corpse that everyone believed to be Lady Van Tassel had a cut on the palm, identical to the one that she had inflicted on her own hand. That cut was the key to proving that the body was that of someone else. Unless that person was her accomplice and also inflicted a knife-wound on their own hand in some sort of odd blood pact, that cut was made by Lady Van Tassel to convince him in particular, _after_ the person was dead, that the body was hers. If he could exhume the body he would be able to determine whether the wound was inflicted before or after death, and from there prove that she still lived.

He had two choices; he could openly discuss his plan with Philipse and obtain permission to exhume the body, or he could dig the body up in secret in the middle of the night. Either way, he was no doubt going to draw the wrath of the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Many thanks to those who are continuing to read. Longish chapter ahead. :)

* * *

_**Chapter Seven**_

Tired of pacing in the sitting room, Ichabod decided to venture out again. The service would be over by now and the townsfolk would be gone; unless of course they had decided to hold a meeting in the church. It occurred to him that it would be worthwhile to locate the grave ahead of time in case he had to work at night. Ichabod walked to the churchyard and made his way between the gravestones until he reached the wooden cross marking Mary Van Tassel's grave, a temporary marker until a headstone could be prepared.

The second Lady Van Tassel wasn't buried anywhere near Baltus, Ichabod noted as he scanned the surrounding gravestones. The cross over her grave had very little writing on it, other than her name and the date of her death. Clearly the people of Sleepy Hollow had no idea who her family was, where she came from or even her date of birth. Indeed, they didn't seem to care about her at all.

"They never connected her to the crone in the woods, or to the family that was evicted by Peter Van Garrett," Ichabod murmured to himself.

Perhaps that added to her bitterness towards these people.

A chill ran up his spine and Ichabod suddenly had an odd sense that he was being watched. Nervously he turned his head this way and that, his eyes darting to and fro. No one appeared to be around, but he turned and hurried out of the cemetery, feeling spooked.

He circled around the church, listening carefully to hear if anyone was inside. It would be very cold in there, he imagined, since the rose window and many of the other windows at the front of the church were broken. Men had broken those lower windows so they could shoot at the Horseman unhindered, and the rose window in the upper story had been shattered when the Hessian shot at Baltus from outside.

"Because it was hallowed ground," he mused, thinking once more about the Hessian's horse Daredevil pawing at the edge of the fence surrounding the church but unable to cross it. He remembered the Horseman hurling his ax onto the grass inside the fence and watching incredulously as it disintegrated. "Could they have hidden in here?"

Ichabod approached the front door and slowly opened it. No one was inside; the service had ended and the congregants had gone home, or off to hold their meeting somewhere else. He made his way down the aisle, toward the side and back doors.

"Is anyone here?" he called out. His voice echoed back to him but he received no other answer.

He thought back again on the night that Baltus was killed. The Horseman knew that Baltus was in the church, which meant that if Katrina and Young Masbath were here now he would know that too. No, it wasn't possible. The Horseman would have been circling the church trying to devise a way to get at them despite the fact that he couldn't enter if that was true. He couldn't for a moment fathom where the two of them were hiding now, nor how they could possibly continue to elude a ghost who seemed to know everything.

Discouraged, Ichabod left the sanctuary and made his way back to Philipse's house.

**oooOooo**

Josef Brouwer was the new doctor in town. He was much younger than Dr. Lancaster, the former physician of the town, closer in age to Ichabod and much more open-minded than the other residents he'd met here; or anywhere else for that matter. Dr. Brouwer had grown up in the town but left to pursue a career in medicine. After finishing medical school in Boston he went to Europe to continue his studies in London. He had arrived back in Sleepy Hollow just two days before this, leaving for home as soon as he received the letter informing him of Dr. Lancaster's death. The town had asked him to return and take over the practice until a permanent replacement could be found, and he had immediately booked passage on the first boat bound for New York.

When Ichabod explained to Philipse what he proposed to do to determine whether the cut had been made post-mortem or not, the lawyer insisted that the doctor also review the body. Ichabod agreed.

Dr. Brouwer was a good-looking young man, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He was shorter than Ichabod, and even slighter of build. In the early hours of the following morning Philipse held the lantern and kept the area lit as Ichabod and the doctor dug up the body buried in Mary Van Tassel's grave. They carried the coffin to Dr. Brouwer's office and set it on one of the long tables in the back room. Before opening it they donned masks to cover their mouths and noses against the stench of the body. Then Philipse stepped back, as he did not want to look at the corpse, and they pried open the wooden box. Ichabod lifted the hand with the cut and examined it carefully.

"Look," he cried in triumph. "There was no blood flow, no healing, no clotting. When this cut was made this woman was already dead."

He stepped aside so the physician could look over the wound.

"You're absolutely right, Constable," Dr. Brouwer confirmed after a thorough examination of his own. "That puts this death in a completely different light."

Ichabod softly released the breath he'd been anxiously holding. Finally someone believed him. More importantly for the time being it was someone from Sleepy Hollow, something that would hopefully assist him in sorting out this mess and finding Katrina and Young Masbath. And for the first time his own discovery, his own idea had been validated by someone who would be viewed unquestionably as an expert. It was heartening to finally meet someone who was somewhat like-minded. The fact that he was willing to perform any type of post-mortem examination showed at least some progressiveness on his part. Ichabod hadn't felt such a sense of relief in a long, long time.

"You may have something," Philipse conceded from his place at the other side of the room. "But that doesn't mean this isn't Mary Van Tassel."

"Why would someone cut a dead woman's hand though?"

"Exactly," Ichabod asserted. "At the very least it gives us cause to consider that _something_ is amiss."

"Unfortunately we don't know of any of Lady Van Tassel's close kin before she married Baltus, and of course Baltus is gone," Dr. Brouwer remarked. "No doubt there are distinguishing features on the body that could help us identify her, such as a birthmark. But only someone close to her could confirm such a thing, especially if the feature is in a more intimate place."

"The crone of the Western Woods is her sister," Ichabod told him. "She would know."

"I don't know if we could trust anything that crazy old woman would say," Philipse muttered almost inaudibly.

Up until now Ichabod had been focused on the hand with the wound only, consciously avoiding the sight of the neck. Now his eyes wandered toward where the head of the corpse should have been and he caught sight of the tissue and blood at the edge of it, where the Horseman's sword struck. The room started to swim before his eyes as his usual squeamishness began to overcome him, but he clutched the edge of the table and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths and attempting to steady himself.

"Constable, are you alright?" He felt Dr. Brouwer's arms supporting him suddenly.

"Yes," Ichabod answered breathlessly.

"Come, let's get you to the other room, away from this."

"No, no, I'm alright." He opened his eyes, the near-fainting spell staved off for now as he focused on a new fact that was becoming clear.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm alright," Ichabod insisted in an annoyed tone.

"What a lunatic," he heard Philipse mutter under his breath.

Fire was exploding on Ichabod's cheeks but fortunately the mask obscured the bottom half of his face and he brushed aside his embarrassment at his lapse.

"The wound is a mess. Look at it," Ichabod told the doctor, recovered now and getting back to the matter at hand. "The Horseman's blade is red hot. I examined the neck wounds of every one of his victims. In each case the blow was precise and neat, the wound cauterized and the edge of the skin and tissue even. There was almost no blood flow from the neck because the heat of the Horseman's sword immediately sealed it. Look at the wound on this body. It's a mass of dried blood and mangled skin."

He stopped after speaking the last sentence, sickened by his own description and needing to take a moment to recover himself once more.

"I didn't examine any of the other corpses. The neck wounds were _all_ cauterized as they were made?"

"Yes. The Horseman did not behead this person," Ichabod continued after a minute, his voice strong. "A person of flesh and blood murdered her in this manner to make it appear as if the Hessian was the assassin in this case as well. With all of the other attacks, no one would have questioned it."

Dr. Brouwer had released Ichabod, assured finally that he wasn't going to faint, and he had moved to the end of the table where he was now intently studying the neck.

"Very good, Constable," he remarked softly. "I'm impressed."

Ichabod tugged at his frock coat and straightened up to his full height, feeling warm with confidence and pride now. "I believe that a full examination is in order and any distinguishing features should be recorded," he stated emphatically. "This person must have family, somewhere even if not in Sleepy Hollow, and they are no doubt wondering what happened to her."

"You may still prove that it _is_ Mary Van Tassel after all," Philipse insisted.

"Perhaps," Ichabod answered stiffly, not wishing to argue with him anymore though he knew that this woman was not Mary Van Tassel. He was resigned to the fact that there would be no convincing Philipse that she was alive short of bringing Lady Van Tassel before him in person. But the only way to do that was to find her unawares, knock her out and carry her to Philipse's office; and the likelihood of that was slim.

"In the event that it isn't Mary Van Tassel however, it is only fair to the deceased and her family that we try to identify her," he added.

"Agreed," the lawyer conceded. "If it is someone else, she deserves to be identified and given a proper burial under her own name. Whoever she is, the grave has already been disturbed. I don't suppose there's any further harm in carrying out your examination. I must admit, Constable Crane, should it turn out to be someone else…the ramifications of that make me uneasy. The very idea that she controls the Hessian and has summoned him to kill…"

He trailed off and cast his eyes downward, a troubled expression on his face.

"Yes," Ichabod replied softly. Sometimes he became so passionate and wrapped up in detecting he forgot to think about the feelings of the people who had been close to the victims. He had to remind himself now that this man had very recently lost his father to the same culprit; and his mother indirectly. It might have been difficult for him to accept that someone right here in their town could want to hurt the people he loved. "I'm sorry. It is hard to believe. But if I'm right about this it may lead to other discoveries. Maybe I can finally get justice for all of the victims, as well as locating two missing people."

Philipse raised his gaze to him and nodded. "Please keep me apprised of any new developments."

He left and with Dr. Brouwer's assistance and physician's insight Ichabod began to examine the body from the point of view of a criminal detective. By the time they were finished he had seven pages of his ledger filled with notes from the examination, as well as some small diagrams.

"Thank you for your help, Dr. Brouwer."

"Do you mind if I ask you a question, Constable Crane?"

"No, not at all."

"Why do you do this?"

"I beg pardon?"

"You very nearly fainted when you first set eyes on the neck wound before. It's obvious to me that you are squeamish."

Ichabod felt the color rise to his face again and he turned away, mortified as always that his weakness had been exposed.

"And yet you forced yourself to perform an autopsy, something that you probably do regularly and something that I imagine you find extremely difficult."

"You're absolutely right," Ichabod answered softly, turning back to him and meeting his gaze. "I am squeamish. There have been times when I've fainted at a crime scene because I was completely overcome by the sight of a particular wound or the amount of blood."

"So why do you continue to do it? Why torture yourself?"

Ichabod paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts and taking a deep breath before he began. "I've been working for the New York constabulary for several years now, and in all that time nothing has changed. People are convicted on evidence extracted from them while they were being tortured. The pain inflicted on them is far beyond what any living being can endure. Our courts don't lack for newer and more horrific devices with which to torture human beings. The constabulary doesn't even attempt to find facts logically and scientifically. They don't care about the truth, about detecting the real guilty party. If I could successfully solve a case using my methods, taking clues from the body and other physical evidence, perhaps I can bring it before the court and prove that mine is the better way."

"The methods you are advocating are already being implemented successfully in England. Have you ever been there?"

"I haven't."

"Not everyone has embraced these methods but they're starting to. Certainly the medical community in London has begun to realize the value of what can be learned from a post-mortem examination of the victim. Don't give up. It may take some time before it's accepted here, but it will happen. It's only a matter of time."

Unable to express how grateful he was for this man's words, Ichabod merely nodded.

They worked together to nail the coffin shut again and carried it outside, where they were accosted by a screaming mob of people calling them heathens as soon as they stepped out the door. Many of the men held muskets or large sticks and they appeared ready to kill them where they stood. Most of the shouts and epithets were hurled at Ichabod; the villagers remembered that he'd dug up four graves during his initial visit and they accused him of coercing Dr. Brouwer. Before he knew it there were several faces looming inches from his and hands grasping his arms and shoulders. The side of the coffin that he was holding slid from his hands and hit the ground with a loud thud.

"Let me go!" he cried out in panic, desperately trying to free himself.

"I assure you all, I was not coerced," Dr. Brouwer called out, attempting to diffuse the mounting fury of the crowd. "This man has come to assist us. Two young people are missing and he's trying to find them."

"And he needed to dig up a body to look for them?" someone retorted. "Did he think _they _were in that coffin?"

"There is a question about the identity of the person in the grave," Ichabod spoke up, keeping his voice firm, though he was terrified and his body was trembling uncontrollably. "It was necessary. We're going to try to determine who this is. It may have bearing on the whereabouts of Katrina and Young Masbath."

"Why should we believe you? You came here to help us when the Headless Horseman was attacking and a dozen more people died after you arrived! Is it a coincidence that after you left he stopped coming?"

"Everyone, stop, please!" It was Samuel Philipse Jr. He was hurrying toward them from the direction of his office. Pushing through the crowd with profuse apologies he came and stood beside Ichabod and held up his hands to get everyone's attention. The men who had been preparing to hit Ichabod released him and stepped back to get out of his way.

Silence finally descended over the angry mob and Philipse began to address them.

"_I_ gave the constable permission to exhume the body and examine it with the doctor's supervision, so we could confirm that the body was Mary Van Tassel's. Everyone, please stand down. There has been enough violence in this town. I will look after the constable."

There was grumbling and whispering as the mob of people began to finally disperse. They were all clearly dissatisfied with the explanation, but they accepted the word of one of their new leaders and they were willing to let Ichabod alone for the time being.

**oooOooo**

Between the time that they reburied the coffin in Mary Van Tassel's grave and the time that he finally sat down to speak with Philipse Ichabod realized that both the attorney and the doctor would be in danger if they acknowledged that the body was anyone else or was the victim of anyone but the Hessian; for Lady Van Tassel would send the Horseman after them the moment she knew that they were privy to what he knew.

He therefore didn't further attempt to convince Philipse, who seemed to remain doubtful.

"What will you do now, Constable?"

"I have a thorough description of the body; therefore I will attempt to contact the woman that lives in the Western Woods."

"The witch?"

"Yes. If it's true that she is Mary Van Tassel's sister she will know if these distinctive features do indeed belong to her."

"And then you'll feel confident that the body in the grave is hers?"

"Yes," Ichabod answered.

It wasn't necessary for the crone to confirm anything, Ichabod knew. He did want to contact her though, as maybe she had seen Katrina and Young Masbath; she seemed to be aware of everything that went on. And it was a good explanation to give Philipse for the time being.

The afternoon was waning when Ichabod left Philipse's office. His host stayed behind to finish up some paperwork, telling him that he'd meet him at home.

Something drew him back to the cemetery as he headed toward home and he returned to the church instead, circling behind it and up the grassy slope to where the graveyard stood. There were several fresh graves besides Mary Van Tassel's that were marked with wooden crosses and he went to view them, stopping when he found the one that marked Baltus's grave. Baltus had been buried next to Elizabeth, his first wife and Katrina's mother. A garland of lovely pink flowers decorated the cross over his grave, no doubt placed there by Katrina. A small disk with a red design at the base of the cross caught his eye and he knelt down to have a closer look.

His heart began to flutter when he saw that it was a hand-made thaumatrope on a string like the one he received from his mother, the side with the picture of the flying cardinal facing outward. For a moment he remained crouched before the wooden marker, staring mesmerized at the picture of the bird. Then he reached over and picked it up gingerly, flipping it over to view the other side. A picture of an empty cage. He opened his coat and reached in to retrieve his own thaumatrope from his pocket and examined them side by side. The style of drawing between the two artists was different but the design was exactly the same.

"Katrina?" he exhaled breathlessly.

Had she left this as a memorial gift for her father on the day of the funeral? Or maybe, he thought hopefully, she was alive and somehow knew that he was back here in Sleepy Hollow, worried and searching for her. Perhaps she had made this and left it in the past days as a clue for him, a symbolic token that represented the special bond that the two of them had. On the day that she first showed him the ruins of the cottage where she'd lived he discovered their common interest in cardinals. One of the beautiful red birds had landed on the branch of a nearby tree while they stood together before the old hearth, and its song caught their attention.

"A cardinal," she exclaimed with delight upon seeing it. "My favorite. I'd love to have a tame one but I wouldn't have the heart to cage it."

He showed her his thaumatrope then, fascinating her with it and explaining the concept of optics, for she thought it was a magic trick when he spun the disk, making the two images on either side of it become one so that the cardinal appeared to fly inside the cage. No, this token couldn't have been meant for her father, for Baltus wouldn't have understood it. Only he ever would. It was one of the moments between them that would be imprinted on his memory forever, for he received a smile from her that was like a ray of sunshine. Following this train of thought, Ichabod remained kneeling at the grave for some time, gazing at the cardinal on her thaumatrope and losing himself in a daydream of her.

"I told you no one would believe you."

Ichabod was jolted out of his daydreaming so forcefully that he nearly toppled over. Completely absorbed in his musings, he hadn't heard anyone coming and Lady Van Tassel was crouched behind him whispering in his ear before he was even aware that he was no longer alone.

"I told you no one would believe you," she hissed again, tauntingly, and a chill crept through his entire body.

The evil that emanated from her was palpable to him now and he was nearly suffocated by her proximity to him. He rose to his feet quickly and turned to look at her, unsuccessfully trying to mask his fear and aversion. She followed suit and he saw that she was cloaked in a long, hooded black cape, her face obscured so that she wouldn't be recognized. But he would know the sound of her voice and sense her wickedness from now on, even without any other clue as to who she was.

She turned and began to glide away from him as if she were walking on air, the edge of the cloak fluttering behind her as a gale blew and lifted it up. The wind carried her last remark back to him.

"I'll be seeing you, Constable Crane."

"Ohh," he groaned, sinking back down to his knees and burying his face in his hands.

Before he arrived in Sleepy Hollow he refused to believe in magic, though he knew it existed. His own mother was a white witch after all; and after his father murdered her because of it he couldn't face the fact that witches and magic existed, neither could he face religion and the hypocrisy that he associated with it from that time forward. Coming to this village had forced him to reluctantly accept the reality of magic. Worse, he was now being manipulated by it. In her own way Lady Van Tassel was controlling him too and rendering him impotent, and he was well aware of it.

A cry of frustration escaped him once more. He didn't know how he could stop her, or how he was going to find Katrina and Young Masbath and keep them safe with her dogging his every step. If and when he located them she would be there, ready to attack.

But he refused to consider himself helpless or even beaten yet. As always, the recourse he had was his logic, his sense and reason. All he could do was continue to follow that, to proceed methodically as if this was any other mundane criminal investigation. But it was growing more difficult as his concern for their safety escalated.

Gently he put both Katrina's new thaumatrope and his own into his pocket and stood up. At first he was going to set hers back exactly where it had been and leave it behind; but just in case she came to her father's grave again he wanted her to know that he'd seen it, that he'd understood her message.

He could still see Lady Van Tassel in the distance and he took off at a run after her. She would know that he was following her but he didn't care. It was apparent that she did not wish to hide from him; rather she was actually flaunting her perceived cleverness, her power over him, her certainty that he would never be credited and that she had the upper hand. The very least he could do was discover where she lived while she was in hiding; he doubted that she spent much time in the Van Tassel home, for it would call attention to the place and eventually give her presence away.

Ichabod followed her at a distance as she made her way through the fields and passed the edge of the woods, circumventing the village.

"The windmill," he murmured as it came into view. "Of course! Last night she said that she brought Katrina there."

Ichabod halted several yards from the structure and watched her disappear inside. Then he turned and made his way back to town. He wouldn't be able to expose her existence by bringing Philipse or someone else there, for she would count on him doing so and disappear. But at least he knew where she hid and perhaps, if there was a time that he knew she was out, he could investigate the windmill for some sort of evidence. Maybe she would become careless and even leave the Horseman's skull behind for him to find. It was too much to hope for; but remembering his experience and his own words to Philipse, even the most skilled, experienced criminals could become too sure of themselves and slip up in their carelessness.

Perhaps her smugness would be her downfall in due time.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Many thanks to those who are still reading and apologies for the long wait between chapters. This is another pretty long chapter, and I feel like it still needs work so I'd appreciate any feedback along those lines if readers have suggestions. I've also tweaked the old chapters. :)

Disclaimer: The rhymes in this chapter were written by Yasmine Galenorn and do not belong to me.

* * *

**_Chapter Eight_**

"We've already been here. In your case twice," Philipse grumbled impatiently as they inspected the Van Tassel home again that evening. "What is it that you're hoping to find this time?"

Ichabod continued to rummage through the desk drawers in the room that he'd discovered to be Baltus Van Tassel's study. "Any and all information that may help me piece together everything that happened to Katrina…to Miss Katrina and Young Masbath after I left Sleepy Hollow."

Philipse remained silent, watching Ichabod as he withdrew a brown leather book and began flipping through the pages. They had discussed his desire to search the house again during dinner. His host believed that it was a futile effort to search a second time but offered to accompany him anyway. Although Ichabod replied that he didn't wish to inconvenience him, deep inside he was glad that the attorney had insisted on coming. In the back of his mind he was nervous that he would encounter Lady Van Tassel yet again. If she did choose to appear Philipse would be there to bear witness; and his presence guaranteed that she would not choose such a course of action.

In truth Ichabod wasn't sure what he was looking for but he knew he had to continue searching, even without direction, especially since he hadn't really examined the house thoroughly from top to bottom the previous two times. Finding the hand-made copy of his thaumatrope at Baltus's grave had filled him with hope and a sense that Katrina was indeed alive, and that she was, without revealing and endangering herself, trying to point him in the right direction.

On the last filled page of the ledger Ichabod discovered a list of names and figures.

"This appears to be a summary of accounts, kept by Baltus I presume. Are you familiar with his handwriting?"

The attorney leaned forward and examined the page. "Yes, that appears to be his writing. I believe he was the one who kept records of wages paid to the servants and such, not his wife."

"This page is dated two days before Baltus was killed," Ichabod mused, examining the page and the names listed on it. Only the first names were written, followed by a monetary amount and then a note. It appeared that on this particular day several servants requested their last wages and left.

He perused the servant names while thinking of his last days in Sleepy Hollow before his return to New York. The morning after he was wounded by the Horseman he'd awakened to find Lady Van Tassel sitting beside the bed watching over him, and serving him to his great surprise. When he remarked about it she answered that Sara the serving girl had vanished. She then went on to inform him that all of the servants were leaving in fear.

His eye roved over the list of names on the page but Sara's was not included among them. He flipped back to the previous page and the page before that, but there was no record of Baltus having paid Sara her departing salary. Perhaps she didn't know she was leaving.

Ichabod rose, taking the ledger with him. "I should like to take a look at the parlor upstairs again and then the other rooms."

Philipse followed him up the stairs and into the parlor. Traces of the chalk circle were still visible on the floor, though it looked as if someone had tried to scuff it out. Ichabod studied it thoughtfully. There were no signs of the odd oil that he'd touched the other night. He found himself wondering what was in the oil that caused it to burn his skin the way it did. After some time it occurred to him that the answer might be in Katrina's book, the one he'd retrieved and placed in the inside pocket of his frock coat upon returning to Sleepy Hollow. Perhaps that was why she'd left it out for him, just as she'd left the thaumatrope for him to find.

Withdrawing the book from his breast pocket he began to flip through the pages, examining the drawings and skimming the descriptions of the spells. Halfway through the book he happened upon a very familiar drawing of a pentagram within a circle, filled with various symbols including an eye. It was the drawing he'd found under his bed, the one that Young Masbath called the Evil Eye and the one that Katrina drew on the floor of the church in pink chalk.

_For the Protection of a Loved One._

He knew a moment of shock and then painful remorse as he read those words, which made up the chapter heading above the diagram; then his eyes closed tightly as the heat of shame began to seep through his body and into his face. It wasn't an Evil Eye in the church or under his bed and she wasn't drawing symbols to bring harm to him or anyone else; she was trying to protect him. He'd made yet another stupid mistake and had condemned her.

Was he any different than his father after all?

"What is that?" his companion asked.

Ichabod's eyes flew open. He quickly shut the book and tucked it back into his pocket. There would be plenty of time to berate himself for his foolishness later. Besides, he didn't want Philipse to think that he put any stock in spiritual and supernatural matters, even if he was becoming somewhat of a believer in spite of himself.

"I'm finished in this room, at least for now," he said briskly.

Other than the chalk circle nothing about the room struck him as noteworthy and he moved on to Katrina's bedroom. The last and only time he stepped foot into this room was the morning after the fiasco in the church, when he'd stood over her pale sleeping form and bid her a sorrowful goodbye that she would never hear.

For the first time Ichabod took notice of Katrina's room and what it looked like. It was decorated in rich warm shades of red and accented with delicate white lace. Lovely white lace curtains adorned the window and the end table beside the bed was covered with a white lace runner. There was a desk in one corner of the room, a bookshelf along the adjacent wall and a bureau next to the closet containing her underclothes, stockings, jewelry and other accessories. He moved about the room, opening drawers and closets, examining her knick-knacks and other personal belongings.

Katrina apparently loved wildflowers and garlands of dried ones decorated the room attractively. There was also a vase on the bedside table filled with additional dried flowers. In the single drawer of the table he found a brush and comb, hair ribbons and her other toiletries. He shut the drawer and moved on to the rest of the room.

Painted wooden figurines of people and animals dotted the top shelf of the bookcase, and a few more of the larger ones were strategically placed at both ends of each of the lower shelves, serving as bookends. A large handcrafted wooden cat, painted black with green eyes, sat on the desk atop a stack of loose papers. There was a rocking chair in one corner of the room and sitting in it was a two-foot tall doll with blonde braids and light brown eyes, dressed in what appeared to be the traditional outfit that would be worn by a Dutch village girl, including a white lace winged cap on her head and a set of coral beads around her neck. The sight of it brought a slight smile to his lips.

Ichabod drew closer to the shelves and read the titles of the books that lined them. Katrina owned many compendiums of children's fairytales, both in English and Dutch, a large volume of Arthurian legends and several small books of French poems. The night that he discovered her in the parlor she was hiding one of her books under the cushion of the couch at his approach, a tale of romance that she said her father believed had caused her mother's brain fever. Of course he knew the truth about that now and he sighed sadly.

He crouched down to look at the spines of the books along the bottom shelf. Thick non-descript volumes took up the whole of this shelf and to his great surprise they turned out to be Latin and Greek textbooks.

After finishing his examination of the bookshelves Ichabod took a seat at her desk and began to explore the contents on the top and in the drawers. An elegant glass candle holder with a red candle, now lit, a supply of pretty pink stationery engraved with her initials, a pen and ink set, the black cat paper weight and the stack of papers decorated the top of the desk. Tucked into the drawers were extra red candles, more stationery and a tin box decorated in the bright reds and greens of the Christmas holiday, with a picture of Sinterklaas on the top.

"Forgive me for disturbing your investigation, Constable Crane, but what do you hope to gain by examining each and every one of Miss Katrina's personal effects?"

"I'm almost finished here, Mr. Philipse," Ichabod replied cryptically, for he didn't have a good answer. He only knew that he needed to keep searching, and when he stumbled on the right thing he would know it. And as he explored the sweet feminine touches of the room, the charming, sentimental objects that were so dear and meaningful to Katrina, he felt more and more intimately connected to her.

"_Because it is yours."_

Those were her words. On the day that he discovered Katrina in his room after returning from Notary Hardenbrook's office with Peter Van Garrett's will, evidence of her father's guilt as he thought, he was uncomfortable and caught off guard, not ready to face her. He didn't know what to say and he ended up abruptly asking her why she was in his room. _Because it is yours_, she'd answered. Now he understood.

The tin box contained needle and thread, a thimble, ribbons, pieces of lace and cloth and other fabrics, beads, string and other miscellaneous sewing materials. Ichabod closed the box and put it aside, then continued to search the same drawer, discovering a small leather volume at the very back. Her ledger.

For a moment he hesitated, reluctant to intrude on her privacy, but he quickly decided that it was necessary and opened the book, beginning to skim the entries. Sometimes she wrote in English, sometimes in Dutch. The entries that he was able to read weren't particularly personal or revealing; most of them appeared to be odd rhymes and recipes. After perusing just a few entries Ichabod suddenly realized that these were spells and recipes for potions and herbal concoctions. This was some sort of magic diary that Katrina kept.

He closed the book and tucked it into his coat pocket with Baltus's ledger for thorough examination later on.

Only the closet remained unexamined. It was fairly large and spacious. Dresses hung from a thick, heavy bar that ran the length of the closet. The floor was lined with shoes and there was a red fabric-covered stepstool for her to use to reach the things on the high shelves above the bar. On the shelves were hat boxes, folded garments and, on the top shelf at the very back, a large wooden box painted red with white and pink flowers. The box was quite heavy and when he moved it the contents shifted and he heard the soft clinking of glass. He brought it down carefully from the shelf and took it over to the desk.

Inside the box were many diverse items. He withdrew each of them one by one and set them on the desk. There were various sachets of herbs and more dried flowers, small vials containing different colored liquids, sticks of incense in various sizes and thicknesses, a small mirror, several cloth sacks containing stones of different colors and textures, and three jars of clear liquid, one with an "N" etched into the glass, another with an "F" and the third with an "S". He couldn't imagine what the letters meant but the liquid in all three jars merely looked like water to him.

At the bottom of the box were odd-shaped black candles. There was also an odd, double-edged dagger with a black handle, similar to the one he'd seen Lady Van Tassel slice her hand with. He felt his blood turn cold at the sight of it and after a moment he replaced everything in the box and returned it to the high shelf in the closet.

"I am finished," Ichabod told his host, who looked relieved to hear it.

They snuffed out all of the candles they'd lit as they moved through the house and toward the front door, then Ichabod locked the door behind them.

"The weather has changed so drastically," Philipse remarked as they made their way home by the light of the lantern he carried.

"Yes," Ichabod answered through chattering teeth. In his haste to search the Van Tassel home again he'd left behind his overcoat, not anticipating that the temperature would drop several degrees by the time he was returning home. "Now it feels like November."

"So dark too," his companion muttered under his breath.

"Tomorrow is the new moon," he replied, glancing up at the murky night sky. "And with so much fog in the air even the stars aren't visible."

But it was more than fog, Ichabod thought to himself gloomily. There seemed to be a thick blanket of evil that hung over the town, obscuring all light and threatening to choke its inhabitants.

"Constable, may I ask what relevance the ledger of accounts you took from the desk might have?" Philipse asked abruptly.

"All of the servants working in the Van Tassel house left a day or so before Baltus and his wife were murdered. This contains a record of the final wages paid to each of them, but one servant's name is missing. A girl named Sara disappeared, but there is no record that she gave notice, no record of her receiving her final pay."

"Perhaps the Horseman murdered her."

"Yes," Ichabod murmured thoughtfully. "Or someone else did."

They walked on through the chilly, windy night. Silence stretched between them for a few minutes before Philipse spoke again.

"Do you believe that it may be her body in Lady Van Tassel's grave?"

"It's a possibility that occurred to me, but it might be hard to prove. Was Sara from Sleepy Hollow? If not is there anyone in town who might know where she came from, where her family lives?"

"I don't know. I'll try to find out for you."

"Much appreciated. But…I must warn you to refrain from speaking of my suspicions," Ichabod cautioned, thinking again of the consequences that would befall the lawyer if Lady Van Tassel discovered his knowledge. "For your own safety please keep this to yourself."

"Of course, Constable Crane. The town is already in ferment after today's altercation outside of Dr. Brouwer's office. There is no need for them to hear of this disturbing development until absolutely necessary."

"Thank you. In the mean time I intend to hold onto the ledger as possible evidence."

**oooOooo**

After bidding Philipse goodnight Ichabod took the lantern and returned to his room, still chilled to the bone from the walk home. He lit the candles on the desk for additional light then stepped over to the fireplace and started a fire. For some time he stood before it warming himself. Then he went and sat down at the desk, setting before him _A Compendium of Spells, Charms and Devices of the Spirit World_ and the ledger that he'd retrieved from Katrina's desk drawer. Before he had a chance to open either of them there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," he called out.

Anneke stepped into the room with a fresh pitcher of water, crossed over to the end table and set it down there.

"Thank you."

She bid him goodnight and left the room.

For a few minutes he held the closed _A Compendium of Spells, Charms and Devices of the Spirit World_ in his hand and thought back to his conversation with Lady Van Tassel in the parlor.

"_That is Katrina's work, not mine,"_ she'd said.

Evidently Katrina _was_ there before he arrived at the house that night and she drew the circle on the parlor floor, for what purpose he didn't yet know.

Ichabod opened the book and skimmed the pages rapidly. There were spells for blessing the home and clearing out evil, instructions for making protection and good luck sachets, recipes for healing teas and recipes for bath oils. In addition to the drawing for protection there were other drawings and symbols to be used in various rituals, along with recipes for oils used to anoint candles and other objects, and even people. Nothing in the book gave any insight into the purpose of the simple circle with drops of oil in the middle and none of the oil recipes in the book contained the volatile ingredients that would explain his skin getting burned from touching it.

He found himself wishing that he'd collected a sample of the oil that was left behind. Maybe he could have analyzed it and discovered what it was; he'd brought his chemicals and equipment with him again. Now that he thought about it, that Lady Van Tassel had no idea where Katrina and Young Masbath were and that even the Horseman couldn't find them indicated to him that any magical workings that might have been in play now were not only effective but very, very powerful. Perhaps Katrina had cast a more powerful protection spell.

Tucking the _Compendium_ back into the pocket close to his heart he moved on to Katrina's magic diary. Apprehensive yet fascinated he flipped page after page, stopping to read each of the entries that were in English. Many of the spells and recipes here were the same or similar to those in the _Compendium_; but about three-quarters of the way through the book he came across some loose folded papers that had been tucked in between the bound pages. The spells on these papers were written in someone else's hand and the handwriting itself was a very old fashioned type of script. The first of these spells, which took up the entire page, was quite different and made chills creep up his spine. He read and reread the rhyme several times in morbid fascination, lines about "binding you from doing me harm" and invoking the elements. Although the rhyme wasn't blatantly sinister – in fact it seemed to be a protection spell of a different sort – there was something about the wording of it that made him shiver.

Ichabod rifled through the other loose pages. They contained recipes except for one that had the letter "M" written at the top, followed by a four-line spell.

_Let harm return to sender,  
Let pain return to source,  
Know that you have done me wrong,  
Be filled now with remorse_

Again he thought back to that night and his conversation with Lady Van Tassel. At the time he wondered if both women were practicing black magic. Now he realized that he'd foolishly jumped to another wrong conclusion. Whatever her reason for drawing the circle on the parlor floor the other night he was sure she had benevolent intentions. He didn't know why she had these pages from someone else but he couldn't believe that she would use magic to bring harm to anyone. In fact the wording of these spells was defensive, not offensive. There was no doubt in his mind anymore that she was a white witch like his mother.

"A more experienced practitioner helped her," he murmured as the realization hit him.

In the morning he would visit the crone again. He'd witnessed her harrowing magical power first-hand the last time he encountered her; the mere recollection of it made him shudder. There was no question that she was intimately familiar with the inner workings of black magic. He believed Lady Van Tassel's claim that Katrina's magic was no match for hers, and the more he thought about it the more certain he was that Katrina would have had to enlist help to fight Lady Van Tassel's dark magic. Katrina was pure and innocent; she had no use for black magic and therefore had little or no knowledge concerning it.

Ichabod wondered if the crone knew that her sister was the culprit; after all, she'd helped him to locate the Horseman's grave. Maybe she was helping Katrina and Young Masbath as well. Perhaps it was she who had given Katrina these pages of darker spells so she could defend herself.

It was late and he thought it wise to try to get some sleep. Ichabod folded the papers again, tucked them in between the bound pages and left the ledger to the side on the desk with Baltus's book of accounts. He went to the wash basin, rinsed his hands and face hastily before undressing, then extinguished the lantern and the candles and got into bed.

**oooOooo**

Early the next morning Ichabod saddled Gunpowder and once more set off for the Western Woods in hopes of finding the witch at home. In one hand he clutched his bag containing his chemicals and books as always. His ledger containing extensive notes on the body that had been buried in the grave marked as Lady Van Tassel's was also tucked inside the bag.

Grey skies covered the land and a thick misty fog oppressed the village and the surrounding woods today as it did daily. There was no wind this morning but a damp chill hung in the air, seeping through the many layers of clothing he wore and into his skin, causing him to shiver. The forest was quiet save for the warble of some birds and the crunch of leaves and dirt under Gunpowder's hooves as he trotted at a leisurely pace.

He reached that part of the woods where the air was thick and stifling, where the birds and all other living creatures silenced abruptly, and he reined Gunpowder into a slower walk. After a short distance the cave came into sight again. The door was closed as usual and no sound came from within, not even the eerie, off-key hum that he'd heard the very first time he was here. Either she was out once more or she was inside but hadn't yet risen from sleep.

Ichabod dismounted and tied Gunpowder to a tree. He strode toward the cave, bag in hand, his steps slowing as he approached the door, his knees beginning to quake. For a moment he paused tentatively, his free hand raised and poised to knock. Taking a deep breath and rallying his courage in spite of his fluttering heart he rapped on the door. No answer came from within and he pushed the door open gingerly, then withdrew his pistol before crossing the threshold.

She wasn't home. Ichabod left the cave and went back to the tree where he'd left Gunpowder, considering whether he ought to wait for her to return or not. He didn't have to make a decision because minutes later she appeared in the distance, coming toward the cave along the Indian trail with a basket on her arm.

"You."

The familiar voice was low, raspy, pointed.

"I've been waiting for you to come back," she continued, drawing uncomfortably close to him.

His lips were dry and he ran his tongue along the upper and then the lower one, attempting to moisten them.

"Y-yes," he stammered nervously. "I…I apologize for disturbing you."

She was dressed in white as before, her head covered with the same veil. His mind immediately traveled back to the vision in the Van Tassel parlor a few nights previous of an identical apparition lifting the same white veil from her face and revealing herself to be his nemesis, and a dead person come to life again.

"Is it…?" he began but then trailed off. He stared closely at her, trying to discern her facial features through the veil. A moment later she raised it from her face. He gasped audibly as he found himself staring at the visage of Lady Van Tassel again and the rate of his heartbeat doubled. Then he noticed the sore on the tip of her upper lip. Lady Van Tassel's skin was blemish-free and healthier than her sister's, for her sister was constantly exposed to the harsh elements. This woman was indeed the Witch of the Western Woods, but for some reason Lady Van Tassel hadn't mentioned that they were identical twins.

Ichabod's head pounded from the thudding of his heart and his knees shook.

"I…I should like to know…are you the person who summoned me here?" he asked as it dawned on him in a flash of inspiration now that he'd viewed her face.

It would explain the child-like scrawl of the letter's author, though it didn't explain why she chose Hans Van Ripper's name to affix as a signature.

"Did you not come here by your own will this morning?" she replied softly.

"Yes…this morning. What I mean…someone wrote a letter to my superiors in New York days ago, requesting help and summoning me back to Sleepy Hollow."

"You seek information."

"I…yes. If you don't mind, I…I have many questions for you. But…you didn't answer my first question. Are you the person who wrote to New York requesting my return?"

She nodded vaguely.

"Why? And why sign Hans Van Ripper's name and not your own?"

"You would not have recognized my own name."

"Oh…I see. Why did you…?"

She suddenly grabbed his arm, frantically beginning to pull him along and peering over her shoulder at an unseen person. "The other one approaches. Hurry inside before she sees you."

Before they reached the cave entrance the sound of a pistol shot broke the silence of the woods and Ichabod cried out, watching in shocked horror as the crone clutched her chest and dropped to her knees. In moments blood was seeping through the fingers of the hand that covered her heart and staining the white fabric of her dress. The basket she'd been carrying lay on the ground beside her on its side and some of its contents had spilled out. He turned his head this way and that, trying to glimpse the murderer whose identity he already knew. She was hidden still. When he turned his attention back to the crone she was lying on the ground wheezing.

"I'm sorry," he cried in anguish, kneeling by her side.

"It's my mistake…my vision wasn't clear…I thought…I thought it…was you…she was after," she gasped.

He'd led Lady Van Tassel to this place. She had followed him and killed her own sister to prevent her from helping him, and he was the cause.

"No," he moaned. "Oh, dear God, please…oh please forgive me…"

His nemesis was a crack shot and her twin sister didn't suffer for long. In just minutes the crone was gone and in the same moment the air around him erupted in a violent blast of wind and the sound of thunder cracked so loudly the vibrations rocked his body. Lightning sizzled brilliantly, the sky was suddenly filled with shrieks and screaming and the very universe seemed to rip open before his eyes as if all of the magic that the crone had unleashed into the world was crashing down at the moment of her death. It wasn't long before he heard the rhythmic pounding of hooves in the distance behind him and getting closer. Ichabod rose to his feet and whirled around in time to see the familiar dark phantom on horseback tearing toward him, coming from the direction of the Tree of the Dead. He cried out in terror.

But the Horseman wasn't coming for him either, he knew. His target was Katrina, in accordance with the spell that Lady Van Tassel had cast. Ichabod stared open-mouthed as the black rider flew past him and galloped at full speed in the direction of the town of Sleepy Hollow.

His body reacted before his mind grasped his impulse; and in moments he was mounted on Gunpowder and racing after the Hessian. If the crone _had_ cast some sort of powerful spell to protect Katrina and Young Masbath from being detected its effects had dissipated as soon as the spell's master was dead. The Hessian knew where to find them now.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Thanks to all who have continued to read, with a special shoutout to Coco and mishap for your reviews. And many, many thanks to CoCo for your continued encouragement. Longish chapter ahead and I'm close to finishing this story. :)

* * *

_**Chapter Nine**_

Daredevil was swift and powerful, and Ichabod had little hope that Gunpowder would catch up to him. Still he desperately spurred his lame horse on as fast as he would go, praying that he would reach Katrina and Young Masbath in time to help them.

Thunder exploded in his ears and he imagined he heard another set of hoofs beating somewhere behind him, but he clutched Gunpowder's reins tightly and concentrated on speeding forward. He emerged from the woods finally and caught sight of the Hessian's black steed far up ahead in the clearing, galloping toward the Van Tassel home. Frantically he dug his heels into Gunpowder's sides and they sped across the field.

The Hessian had already dismounted from Daredevil's back when Ichabod reached the house and he was striding in the direction of the front door purposefully. Ichabod stopped Gunpowder and slipped off his back, landing on wobbly legs. Another horse, a white mare, was approaching and he saw that Lady Van Tassel was astride it. The other set of hoof beats.

Ichabod quickly regained steady legs and began to run to the house. He halted when he noticed that the Horseman had abruptly stopped about twenty-five feet from the front porch. After a moment he turned and moved swiftly toward the side of the house, beginning a circle around it. He was looking for another way in.

"What on earth…?" Ichabod exclaimed breathlessly.

Immediately he thought back to that night in the church again, and the way the Horseman could not cross the threshold because it was hallowed ground. He recalled with perfect clarity the way the demon's crossbow disintegrated when he hurled it into the ground beyond the gate. But the Van Tassel property was not holy and the ground wasn't hallowed. Was this more magic worked by the Witch of the Western Woods? If it was, how was it still in effect after she died? Had Katrina worked this spell?

There was no time to ponder this now. Ichabod snapped out of his stupor and made a dash for the front door. Katrina and Young Masbath had to be inside, he thought. The door was locked and he reached into his pocket for the keys. His hands were shaking and he fumbled several times before finally getting the correct key in the lock and unlocking the door.

"Katrina!" he called out, rushing in. "Katrina, where are you?"

"Here."

That voice made him stop in his tracks in the middle of the large hall. His blood froze.

_How?_ he wondered silently, his hopes plummeting.

Lady Van Tassel emerged from one of the back rooms, dragging Katrina with her at gunpoint.

"I have a key too, Constable Crane, to all of the doors not just the front door. And you are not fast enough."

Katrina's frightened eyes met his for a minute and he felt his heart break. Her stepmother yanked her arm and began forcing her to walk. They passed him and moved toward the front door. Ichabod followed them, feeling helpless and struggling in vain to think of a course of action that could stop Lady Van Tassel and rescue Katrina. He had a pistol too, but that wouldn't do much good. His marksmanship wasn't as proficient as he would have liked it to be and there was a good chance that he would hit Katrina accidentally.

He watched Lady Van Tassel, thinking that if he could only figure out where she had hidden the Hessian's skull maybe he could take it and the Hessian would no longer be under her control. His eye fell on the black sack that was tied around her waist and he stared at it closely. Was it possible that she carried it in there? It was large enough to hold a skull.

They had reached the front door, Ichabod trailing a few feet behind. Lady Van Tassel turned suddenly and aimed her pistol directly at Ichabod's heart. He heard the sharp bark of the gun and the sound of Katrina's scream, and he felt something hit him in the chest. Then he lost consciousness.

Young Masbath was leaning over him when he opened his eyes again. He was lying on his back on the floor.

"Sir, you're not dead," the boy exclaimed relieved.

Ichabod's hand instinctively went to his heart. He noted in wonder that there was no blood on his hand when he brought it away from his chest and in front of his eyes, nor did he feel pain anywhere in his body. Surely a gunshot wound would be excruciating.

"Thank you, Young Masbath," he murmured gratefully.

He sat up and rose quickly to his feet. Young Masbath leaped up too and they rushed out the front door, onto the porch.

The two women were struggling on the grass in front of the house, Katrina desperately fighting her stepmother's attempt to pull her beyond the invisible boundary that the Horseman couldn't cross. Somehow Lady Van Tassel's pistol had been forced out of her hand and it now lay on the ground, a few feet away from them. Young Masbath spotted it first and he darted over and scooped it up. Out of the corner of his eye Ichabod saw the boy aim it at Lady Van Tassel. But when he pulled the trigger an ominous click sounded, indicating that the pistol was empty. No wonder she had left it abandoned on the ground.

Ichabod rushed forward. He intended to seize Lady Van Tassel and pull her away from Katrina so that Katrina could break free and run back into the house where she'd be safe.

"Don't, Constable," Lady Van Tassel stopped him with a sharp warning, her gleaming eyes fixed upon him. She raised her hand with a wicked grin and he saw that she was holding the odd double-edged dagger with the black handle, the one she'd used to slice her palm.

In one dizzyingly quick, precise movement she grabbed Katrina around from behind, winding her arm around her chest like a band and pulling her against her body, the blade of the dagger now at her throat. She began to drag Katrina toward the Horseman, who had come full circle around the house, unsuccessful at gaining access from any direction.

Desperately Ichabod rushed past them, putting himself between them and the Hessian, ready to intercept if Lady Van Tassel pushed Katrina at the Hessian. He turned around to glance at the Horseman and saw that he'd gathered rope and appeared to be fashioning a harpoon-like weapon similar to the one he'd used to spear Baltus Van Tassel and pull him onto ground that wasn't hallowed. A tenacious force, this demon would not be stopped by a mere spiritual or magical boundary.

"Oh, God…" he exclaimed breathlessly, and he turned and lurched toward Katrina with a burst of energy. He was stronger than Lady Van Tassel and he consciously told himself that he would not hold back even though she was a woman. Seizing the arm that held the knife he pulled it away from Katrina's throat and twisted it until he was hurting her and she had no choice but to drop the dagger. The distraction allowed Katrina to break free.

"Run, Katrina!"

"Yes, do run, Katrina," she taunted, snatching her arm from Ichabod's grip. "It won't be long now before this last residue of my sister's spell wears off and the Horseman can cross over that boundary. I have already set my own spell in motion."

"Young Masbath, take her into the house quickly and keep her away from all windows and doors," he ordered. "Hurry!"

The boy grabbed Katrina's hand and began to pull her into a run with him. Ichabod dived down for the dagger that now lay on the ground. Lady Van Tassel saw his intention and threw herself on top of him, beginning to claw at his hands. He managed to grasp the knife before she could, but her hands moved to his hair and she began to pull it hard.

"Owww!" he yowled, tears springing to his eyes from the pain. He dropped the knife and she let go of his hair and scooped it up.

Large black boots passed in front of his eyes, stomping over the ground determinedly. He gasped and looked up to see that the Horseman had moved past the threshold that had until now held him back. The spell was broken, as Katrina's stepmother had predicted. Panicked, he scrambled to his feet and started to run toward Katrina, to put himself once again between her and this relentless entity that plowed forward, thoughtless and dispassionate, to do the bidding of another's will. Lady Van Tassel rushed forward and blocked Ichabod's way, now grabbing his arm and bringing the dagger up to his neck. Too frantic to even notice the knife he pushed her, trying to move her out of his way. She fought back and he felt a sting as the blade of her dagger nicked his arm. He reached for the satchel that was tied around her waist but she fought him wildly and pushed his hand away.

"No!" he shouted as he saw the Hessian reach Katrina and Young Masbath.

Young Masbath tried to protect her but he was too small and the Horseman pushed him out of the way so forcefully that he sent him flying a few feet away. He landed on the ground with a thud.

Ichabod tore himself out of Lady Van Tassel's clawing grasp and ran toward them. She ran after him and seized his arms once more, attempting to pull him back the other way. They struggled and she spun him around, putting herself between him and the Horseman and Katrina. The Horseman had seized Katrina so she couldn't run away and his ax was raised high, poised to come down across her neck. With a loud cry and all of the physical might he could muster Ichabod shoved Lady Van Tassel, sending her reeling several feet in the same way that the Horseman had sent Young Masbath reeling; then he lunged forward to stop the assassin's arm from lowering the blade on Katrina.

It was too late. Before he knew what had happened a head with long blonde hair was on the ground, rolling away from the tangle of bodies that now lay sprawled there, dresses billowing out.

"Katrina!" Ichabod exhaled weakly, and sank to his knees.

The Horseman moved swiftly, spearing the blonde head on the end of his sword. He turned and strode back to Daredevil carrying his prize; then he mounted the large black horse in one sweeping motion and an instant later was galloping back toward the Western Woods and the Tree of the Dead.

Ichabod was grateful for the darkness that enveloped him as he slumped to the ground in a swoon.

**oooOooo**

When he came to he was lying on something plush and comfortable. Small soft hands tenderly stroked his cheeks and brushed his hair back off of his face. The scent of honeysuckle wafted across his nose and Ichabod sighed dreamily and slowly opened his eyes. He found himself staring up into lovely warm brown eyes.

"Katrina?" he murmured in disbelief, relieved and happy to find her alive and well, leaning over him and caressing his face. He remembered the Horseman's blade coming down at her and seeing him ride off with the blonde-maned head, and he was at a loss to explain just how she'd managed to escape. A part of him wondered if he was dreaming; it seemed too good to be true.

It took an effort for him to speak and he was too dazed and overwhelmed to form a coherent sentence.

"Is it really you?" he finally managed to ask. "How…?"

"You saved me, Ichabod Crane," she said tenderly, smoothing his hair with dainty fingers.

"I…?

"You pushed my stepmother in front of the Horseman's oncoming blade. He took her head instead of mine."

"I…I don't believe it…I thought…" he trailed off, thinking again of the Horseman carrying off the head, remembering how certain he'd been that it was Katrina's; and he groaned and closed his eyes.

"You pushed her into me so hard that I lost my balance and fell. It all happened very fast. Somehow she ended up in the path of his blade. Her body landed on top of mine." She shivered as she thought of it. "When she died the hold she had over him was broken. It's over now. Tomorrow I'll return his skull to his grave."

He opened his eyes again and nodded, beginning to sit up. She helped him then moved to sit beside him.

They were in the parlor. Somehow Katrina and Young Masbath had managed to carry him up here and they'd stretched him out on the couch. A fire crackled in the hearth and the room was lit up with candles.

Ichabod turned to look at Katrina and she smiled at him. Without thinking he leaned toward her and embraced her in the same moment that she threw her arms around him.

"Oh, Katrina, thank God you're alright," he sighed, cradling her head against his chest and stroking her long golden hair. "You and Young Masbath. I would have gone out of my mind…I would never have been able to forgive myself if anything had happened to you."

She squeezed him tightly in response.

They sat together locked in an embrace for a long while. Slowly they released each other then, settling back together on the couch to talk leisurely.

"Where _is_ Young Masbath? He's alright, isn't he?"

"He's fine. He went to get water for you."

"I owe him an apology…and a thank you."

He looked around, taking in the crackling fire, the rich warm colors of the furniture, the sense of comfort and intimacy in this room. She was studying him serenely when he returned his gaze to her and he smiled at her tenderly.

"Are you feeling better?" she asked.

"Much better, now that I know you're alright."

She graced him with a sweet smile.

"I can still hardly believe the way it…it's incredible."

"Her own spell backfired on her," Katrina answered quietly.

"I…see." He wanted to understand everything that had happened and he began to gather his thoughts. "And just as the spell that the witch in the woods cast over you and Young Masbath was lifted the moment she was killed, your stepmother's spell ceased to work when the Hessian killed her."

"Yes. I knew the moment that the Witch of the Western Woods died."

"But…part of the spell still lingered…for a short time, at least, the Horseman couldn't cross that invisible threshold."

"That was the nature of her spell, I guess, but yes, it was only temporary."

"Still, it was an incredibly powerful spell she cast," he remarked, shuddering as he recalled the way the air seemed to explode around him when her spell was broken with her death. "Your stepmother and the Horseman couldn't find you in all that time."

Katrina nodded. "An invisibility spell."

"Invisibility spell?" he echoed incredulously. "How…?"

"Her skills were far beyond mine," she replied. She paused and became thoughtful. "In the past I used invisibility, but in a completely different way. I didn't literally become invisible. The spells were based more on power of suggestion. I simply didn't wish to be noticed so I wasn't. It was a matter of will and making myself inconspicuous. This was something else. Even in spirit, as well as sight, the Hessian and my stepmother could not discern where we were, or that we even existed at all in those moments."

"Have you both been in the house all this time then?"

"For the most part," she replied.

"I can't believe it," he murmured, shaking his head slowly.

"Ichabod, I couldn't reveal myself to you even though I so wanted to. It might have broken the spell's effectiveness and put us in danger. Even lighting candles and starting a fire in the hearth, which I only did when I needed to cast a spell, was risky because people could see the light from outside."

"I know," he answered tenderly. "But you did send a message to me and you tried to guide me. You left clues. The book, for example." He reached into his pocket and drew out the two thaumatropes. "And this."

He held out the second thaumatrope, the one that she'd left by her father's grave, and she took it with a smile.

"You left it as a token at the base of your father's grave but I knew that you meant it for me." He looked away suddenly and stared at the floor, guilt weighing on his heart. "Katrina, I…"

For a long time he remained silent, leaving the thought unfinished, and she waited patiently for him to continue. She seemed to sense that he was having difficulty and quietly allowed him to find his own way.

"I have so many questions," he said finally, steering the subject back to the facts regarding the events. "What happened here after I left?"

"My stepmother decided it was time to reveal herself to me. I was sitting in the drawing room downstairs. She hit me and I don't really remember everything. She came from behind and the next thing I knew I was at the windmill. It was then that she told me that she controlled the Horseman and that she was responsible for all of the murders. My father saw the Horseman come toward her but he didn't actually see him strike. It was Sara's body that they found, dressed in my stepmother's clothes. She killed her."

Ichabod closed his eyes and nodded sadly. "I had begun to suspect something of the sort," he sighed, opening his eyes again. "Sara left without collecting her last wages as the other servants had done. It seemed to me that she didn't know she was leaving."

"Young Stephen Masbath was watching over me though. He saw the smoke from the fire in the windmill and became suspicious. He came out to the mill and when he saw what was happening he snuck up behind her and hit her over the head with a shovel. We ran then and went directly to Victoria Archer…the Witch of the Western Woods. She had helped me in the past and I knew that she could help me now."

A pang of sadness pricked him. Victoria Archer. He had never discovered the witch's name until now.

"You knew that she worked with black magic."

"But she didn't work with it in the same way that her sister, my stepmother, did. My stepmother used it to harm others. Victoria Archer only used it defensively. She learned of its workings but only so she would know how to protect herself and others from it. I could never have fought my stepmother's magic alone. The spells and charms I learned were different, more general. They weren't meant to fight specific, targeted attacks. My mother never taught me anything about black magic. I'm not certain that she knew anything about it. If she did surely she would have known that my stepmother…"

Katrina trailed off and lifted a hand up to her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Katrina," he said softly, taking her other hand in his.

"She murdered her."

"I know." He hesitated then awkwardly reached out to her and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him easily and he squeezed her comfortingly. He brought his other hand around to stroke her hair.

"I'm alright," she said finally, wiping her eyes and sniffling briefly. "And at least she can't do anymore harm."

"Yes," he replied softly.

"But there is more that you want to know." She sat up slowly and smiled wanly at him.

"It's alright. Take as long as you need to tell me."

Regaining her composure after several minutes she continued. "Victoria Archer cast the spell of protection around us, the invisibility spell. And she gave me instructions for a spell that I was to perform, a spell to make my stepmother's black magic backfire on her."

"Is that what the circle drawn on the floor over there was for?"

"Yes."

"This past Saturday when I came here…you had only just finished casting it a short time before I arrived."

She nodded.

"There were drops of oil left on the floor too. When I touched one of the drops it burned my skin…"

"Banishing oil," she explained. "The ingredients are quite volatile. She gave me a vial of it, already prepared."

"And the folded pieces of paper…?"

Her eyebrows went up and he stopped abruptly, caught and feeling ashamed.

"Oh…I…I found your magic diary when I searched…it's in my room at Samuel Philipse Jr.'s house. Forgive me for taking it and for prying into something personal of yours. But I was out of my mind with worry about you and desperate to find out any information that I could…"

"Yes, I know. It's alright. To answer your question, there were two spells that she gave me. She wrote them down for me, as well as the recipe for the banishing oil. Even though the oil was already prepared she wanted me to know the spell in its entirety, including everything that went into casting it."

"I see." His thoughts drifted to the moment that Victoria Archer was shot in front of his eyes and he sighed ruefully. "It's my fault that she died. I've done nothing but bungle everything during my time spent in this place. I went to question the witch and your stepmother followed me. I led her right to her…"

"No, Ichabod, you're not to blame. The magic that was being worked here was volatile and chaotic and unpredictable. This type of magic always is. If worked properly it redirects the black magic back to the original sender. But it is rarely straightforward and in one's complete control. Victoria Archer knew that, she understood it fully, and she chose to be the vessel through which the karma worked. She knew that events would unfold unpredictably and she warned me of the very same thing. We both knew the possible consequences and we both accepted them. You were also a vessel through which it worked, especially after she died. That was my stepmother's final undoing."

Her gaze lowered to his chest and she reached out, her fingers gingerly touching the fabric of his coat over his heart. He looked down, instantly recalling the moment that Lady Van Tassel aimed the pistol at him and fired. Katrina moved her hand away as he brought his own hand to the spot and examined the frayed hole in the fabric, puzzled. Underneath his fingers he could feel the hard cover of the book that she'd given him, which had been in his inside pocket against his heart all along, and he opened his coat to remove it. He stared in astonishment at the bullet lodged in the front cover.

When he looked up she was gazing at the book as well, this precious gift that she had generously presented to him and which he'd foolishly left behind when he departed the first time. She raised her eyes to him then and beamed, clearly pleased that she had been able to do something for him and that in her own way she had saved his life too.

Painful remorse seized his heart. The book slipped from his hands and into his lap.

"Oh, Katrina, I don't deserve you," he blurted out mournfully.

"Ichabod…"

"You deserve someone who never doubted you."

She gazed at him tenderly and took his hands in hers, squeezing them firmly. "You lost your faith such a long time ago. It cannot be easy trying to find it again."

"I left…like a coward…and I…"

"But you came back to help when you knew there was trouble." She spoke so serenely, so gently. "You were here when you needed to be. You stopped my stepmother and the Horseman. And we owe our lives to you."

Then she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

Ichabod sat in stunned silence and stared at her in wonder. This lovely woman was nearly a decade younger than he was and in some ways she was so much wiser. From the very first moment that he laid eyes on her she'd bewitched him with her beauty, and her quiet mystery and serenity. He'd never dared to hope that such a beautiful young woman would ever spare him a passing glance, yet alone care for him as she did. Yet she did, and more than that. Somehow she saw all that was good in him. She wouldn't dwell on what he had done wrong or on his faults. Her view was broader and she saw a bigger picture. And she could forgive him for leaving because he had made the right choice in coming back; for her that was what was important.

He decided then that if she would accept his proposal of marriage he would spend the rest of his life striving to make up for any wrong he'd done her, and to make her happy.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter Ten**_

By the next day Katrina was busy working with Samuel Philipse, Jr., and she would be thus occupied for several days. Before the papers were signed transferring all property into her name it would be necessary to conduct an extensive inventory. Both the Van Garrett and Van Tassel properties and possessions had to be catalogued in full. With the Horseman's appearances and the series of murders, the Van Garrett estate had been neglected as well until now. Several men were assisting Philipse, and he and Katrina hurried back and forth between the two houses overseeing this process.

Meanwhile Ichabod sat at the desk in the guest room of the Van Tassel home, where he was now lodged once again, with his ledger open before him and pondered the report that he would write to his superiors. Every once in awhile he wrote down notes about everything that had occurred and what he might include in his explanation. Other than speaking of the Horseman, whose existence all of the townsfolk took for granted, Katrina had managed to recount the events to Samuel Philipse Jr. without including details concerning magic or spells. If the need arose she and Young Masbath were witnesses and could offer statements before the Burgomaster and High Constable; but he hoped that would not become necessary.

The two of them had endured much hardship in these past weeks. Despite the protection that Victoria Archer's spell had provided them every moment of their existence had been filled with fear. Food had been stored in the root cellar for the winter after the autumn harvest and fortunately there was plenty for them to eat. But their ease of survival ended there. He learned after speaking with Young Masbath that they'd rarely allowed themselves the luxury of a fire though it was November already, for the smoke would be seen, and the areas of the house that they occupied were limited to a couple of rooms that had no windows, where they could at least light a candle. Only at night, when the rest of the town was asleep, did they venture outside at all. They did not dare to light one of the hearths unless it grew unbearably cold and the piles of blankets under which they huddled became ineffective; when they were in danger of freezing to death.

Apparently they were hiding in the root cellar that Saturday past when he and Lady Van Tassel came into the house. Katrina assumed correctly that her stepmother would never consider that they might hide down there. The thought never occurred to him either. How cold they must have been waiting there until the house was empty and they could safely emerge once more.

His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of small footsteps and he turned to the door. Young Masbath entered the room carrying a tray with a pitcher and an empty glass. He set the tray down on the desk and lifted the pitcher, pouring out a glass of water for Ichabod.

Ichabod set his pen down and turned to him.

"Thank you, Young Masbath."

He paused, hesitating briefly, and glanced into the young man's face, seeing no evidence of anger there, nor any accusation. Rather he still showed a loyalty that Ichabod could hardly explain and he seemed genuinely glad to serve him.

"I never thanked you for looking after Katrina…in my absence. You have my deepest gratitude."

Young Masbath smiled diffidently.

"I'm glad you returned, sir. It's good to see you again."

"And you as well." Ichabod cleared his throat, feeling somewhat awkward. "Well, I must continue working on my report."

"You will be returning to the city again soon then, sir?"

"Yes, once Katrina has put all of her affairs here in order we will be leaving for the city together."

The boy looked crestfallen but he masked his feelings quickly and nodded.

"We wanted to talk to you about it actually," Ichabod said gently, reaching up and squeezing Young Masbath's shoulder reassuringly. They had indeed planned to speak with him about it but hadn't had a free moment to do so in the past twenty-four hours. He decided that it would be best to put the child's fear and disappointment to rest now. "Katrina and I are to be married…and we were planning to bring you to the city too, to live with us. That is if you would like to come."

His face brightened immediately. "Thank you, sir. I would like that very much."

"Good," Ichabod replied softly with a nod and squeezed his shoulder once more.

At that moment Katrina entered the room. "Supper is ready."

She turned to Young Masbath and smiled warmly.

"Would you go downstairs and keep Mr. Philipse and the others company, Stephen? We'll be along shortly."

He nodded and left the room. Katrina approached the desk and peered over Ichabod's shoulder at his ledger.

"The Horseman's skull has been returned to his grave and these terrible events have come to an end. Yet you're still working so hard."

"I shall have to provide my superiors with a satisfactory report of the events that occurred here. And the report cannot include details about ghouls and goblins. Or magic."

"Very true."

"Speaking of which," he continued. "There is something that has been puzzling me. You cast a spell in the parlor this past Saturday night, but you were in danger long before that. Why did you wait until this past Saturday?"

"This type of spell has to be done during the waning moon."

"I see."

"And it is most powerful and effective when performed on a Saturday because that is Saturn's day. It is Saturn magic." She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. "Then you are a true believer now?"

"How can I not be after everything that has happened?" Ichabod replied with a sigh. "Anyway, was my mother not a white witch herself after all?"

He closed his ledger and rose to his feet. They stood toe to toe and gazed at one another. Katrina reached up and cupped his face in her hand gently. He brought his own hand over hers to cover it, holding it pressed against his cheek and savoring the feel of her skin against his. She leaned in closer and arched her face toward his, bringing her other hand up to cup his face. The material of her dress brushed against his legs softly and the honeysuckle scent of her hair was intoxicating. His heartbeat quickened. He released her hand and encircled both arms around her waist, embracing her tightly and leaning down to kiss her. Their first true kiss.

"Oh, Katrina," he said softly when they had paused to catch their breath, those two words escaping from his lips in a long exhalation. "Let's not wait until we reach the city to get married."

Her eyes were filled with joy as she lifted her head and gazed into his face.

"I don't know if there is anyone here now that can marry us…" he began.

"Since Reverend Steenwyck's passing we do not have a minister in town. A student of theology has been leading the church services, but he is not yet ordained. Mr. Philipse is an attorney not a magistrate, but perhaps he can advise us. Although I would prefer to be married in a church, if you have no objections…"

"I will do whatever you would like. Perhaps a nearby town."

"We could go to Tarrytown. It isn't far from here."

"It's on the way to the city, if I'm not mistaken."

She rested her head against his chest, placing a small, delicate hand over his still rapidly thudding heart. He tightened his hold on her waist and leaned down, resting his head against hers.

"I already told Young Masbath that we were returning to the city together. The subject came up just now and he looked terribly upset. I wanted to put his fears to rest."

"He must have been worried that he would be left behind here, alone."

"Yes. He was quite relieved to learn otherwise. Actually he was happy."

"I'm glad." She raised her face to look at him again. "It will be some time before we can actually leave. Maybe a fortnight."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

She shook her head. "Inventories take time, and the Van Garretts had a lot of possessions, as did my father. They're working as quickly as they can. When they're done I'll sell most of it, with the exception of a few things that I will keep for sentimental value. I'll sell both properties, of course. That will take time and will require at least one journey back here."

A trace of sadness spread across her features. Ichabod drew her closer against him once more, embracing her comfortingly and cradling her head against his chest. They stood together quietly for some time, their arms wrapped around each other. He stroked her hair tenderly.

"They're waiting for us downstairs. We should probably go," she finally said quietly.

"Probably."

Katrina lifted her head and he bent down to kiss her once more.

"Now we can go," he murmured.

The corner of her lips turned up in a lovely smile and he felt his heart swell at the sight of it.

They walked out of the room and descended the stairs together, arm in arm.


End file.
